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BUSPHEREThe map of the UK rail supply chain
219 SUPPLIERS · ONE SPHERE
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Busphere

Busphere

The map of the UK rail supply chain

219 SUPPLIERS
DEPARTURES 11:42 COMPONENTS on time · all parts TICKET HALL ▸ SELECT TRAIN TO EXPLORE

Explore the train,
meet the supply chain.

TAP AN ⓘ MARKER ON ANY AREA · CLICK THE TRAIN TO OPEN THE 3D MODEL
Busphere
219 COMPANIES · 28 GROUPS

Rail Sphere

Great British Railways — who's taking over what

✓ VERIFIED JULY 2026

Plans, Sponsorship & Custodians

PILOT · UK RAIL SPHERE
EVERYTHING FREE DURING THE 12-MONTH PILOT

Launch is sponsored, not paywalled.

The pilot year is funded by founding sponsors from the leading organisations inside the sphere — the ROSCOs, the TOCs and Network Rail — so every supplier, buyer and bid team gets the full platform free while the network fills up. After the sponsored year, basic listings stay free forever; keeping a card live (contacts, edits, bid alerts) becomes chargeable.

ALWAYS FREE
Your basic listing
Company name, group and placement in the sphere. Free forever, with no card required — during the pilot and after it.
FREE DURING THE PILOT
Live Card & Bid Pro
Contacts, editing, bid alerts and unlimited exports — included at no cost for the first 12 months for every user.
PAID FROM MONTH 13
Live Card & Bid Pro
From £49/mo to keep a card live, £149/mo for bid tooling. Your basic listing stays free either way — nothing is removed.
MONTHS 0–12
Sponsored launch
Everything free for all users. Custodian seeds the sphere by bulk upload; companies claim their cards.
MONTH 6
Sponsor review — option to extend free period to 12 months or convert early adopters at a founder discount.
MONTH 13+
Live cards go paid
Listings remain free. Live details, bid alerts and multi-sphere links move to subscription.
ONGOING
Custodian revenue share
Sphere custodians earn per new verified company plus a share of year-one subscriptions in their sphere.
FOR SUPPLIERS

Supplier

Free forever
  • Get discovered — your company placed in its sphere and listed in the A–Z directory
  • Counted in saturation & competition data
  • Added in bulk by the sphere custodian — nothing to set up
Browsing the atlas, the 3D models and the directory is free for everyone, with no sign-up.
FOR SUPPLIERS

Supplier Pro

£49/mo from month 13
  • Control your profile — contacts shown, edited by your named employee
  • Bid alerts the moment a buyer adds you to an export
  • Pinned in the 3D models
  • 1 sphere + 3 in-sphere links included
FREE DURING THE SPONSORED PILOT
FOR BUYERS & BID TEAMS

Bid Team

£149/mo from month 13
  • Build shortlists by CP7 category & framework
  • Export your supplier pack to CSV, unlimited
  • Suppliers are told automatically that a bid is in process
  • Full saturation & single-source analytics
FREE DURING THE SPONSORED PILOT
FOR INDUSTRY PARTNERS
MULTI-SPHERE

Multi-Sphere

from £99/mo — pay per link
  • Everything in Supplier Pro
  • +£15/mo per extra sphere-within-sphere link
  • +£39/mo per cross-industry sphere (e.g. Siemens: Rail + Household Goods)
  • Talent visibility across your linked spheres

🛡 Sphere Custodian programme

Every country-level sphere is run by one verified SME — an expert who knows the area through experience. The custodian seeds and expands the sphere and its sub-spheres, approves new cards, bulk-uploads data and keeps the taxonomy clean. Pilot custodian, UK – Rail Network: the founder. When a new national sphere is requested (e.g. UK Buses), a custodian is appointed for it.

£25PER NEW VERIFIED COMPANY
10%OF YEAR-1 SUBSCRIPTIONS IN YOUR SPHERE

📈 Market insight LIVE FROM THIS SPHERE

Link pricing doubles as market intelligence — instantly see which areas are saturated and which are one-company monopolies.

MOST SATURATED GROUPS
SINGLE-SUPPLIER GROUPS (POTENTIAL MONOPOLIES)

🪪 Who owns a card?

  • The card belongs to the company, not the person. A named employee keeps it updated; if they change job the card stays with the company and the new employee is assigned as editor.
  • Responsibility for accuracy sits jointly with the company and its named employee.
  • Sphere data can be uploaded in bulk by the custodian, but each card is maintained by its owner.
  • Employees can browse linked spheres as a live map of companies — and career moves — in their field; sales teams get a direct line to new business, and buyers to suppliers.

Market intelligence

GREAT BRITAIN
See where the market is crowded — and where it isn't. Every supply area below is scored by how many companies compete in it, so you can spot saturated categories to negotiate hard on, and single-source exposure where one supplier failing would stop work.
COMPETITION BY SUPPLY AREA
Counts reflect companies currently mapped in this sphere. As the atlas fills, thin areas will thicken — a low count can mean a genuinely concentrated market or a gap in coverage, so treat single-source flags as a prompt to check, not a conclusion.