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To facilitate the choice of the winning bid in the public procurement of bus transports in Sweden and to make sure that the winning bid has the qualities that are requested, the placed demands are very detailed. On the other hand, the detailed demands will lead to limitations and could force the operator to use less environmentally friendly alternatives. The purpose of this paper is to identify factors regarding the buses and their properties that are commonly used in the public procurement process and analyze their level of details.

The method is to collect and study foundations from the process of public procurement of bus transport for three years in Sweden.

The result shows the most common and relevant aspects regarding the buses and their properties that have been requested and taken into consideration when creating the final contracts. Most of the demands regarding the factors were also described in very great detail.

The study is done with data from three years. The demands have only been classified on two levels: detailed and non‐detailed.

The results enlighten the amount of demands that are specified in the foundations for public procurement of bus transports. While these demands make the base for the contracts, they are important for the decision makers in public transports.

The paper shows a general overview of hard and soft demands regarding factors that have been expressed in the foundations for public procurement of bus transports for the previous three years.

The process of choosing the best part in the public procurement of bus transports is easier if the demands of the qualifications are well specified and detailed. On the other hand, detailed contracts will lead to limitations and could force the entrepreneurs to use uneconomical, but most of all, less environmentally friendly alternatives. The effects of using less specified contracts in order to achieve more environmentally friendly bus traffic have been tested and evaluated by optimization models. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

A mathematical model with binary variables is developed to evaluate the environmental effects of more optimized bus sizes. Computational results from a bus service provider are reported. Different scenarios have been tested in order to evaluate the environmental effects of less detailed contracts.

The results of the mathematical model indicate that all parts involved in the public procurement process, the public authority, the entrepreneur and the customers, will gain from more flexible and less detailed contracts.

The bus system in this study is limited to data from one region in Sweden. However, a pre‐study indicates that this region is representative with regard to public procurement of bus transports in Sweden as well as in major parts of Europe.

In terms of the total environmental impact from the public transport system, the paper focuses on the importance of creating relevant and less detailed contracts in public procurement. A mathematical model and data from a Swedish bus service provider have been used.