LCC and other energy-related quantities may be effectively optimised by creating incentives for manufacturers.

Procurement contracts often contain penalty agreements, i.e. clauses specifying the amount of money to be paid by the manufacturer if certain agreed parameters (especially maximum downtime or maintenance) are not fulfilled by the product. However, the reverse case is usually not foreseen by the contracts, i.e. operators usually do not pay back to the manufacturer part of their LCC benefits if a product performs better than expected. Such a bonus-penalty system could create an additional incentive for manufacturers of rolling stock.

Bonus-penalty clauses work as follows: A target value for some relevant quantity is specified. If manufacturers do better than that, they are rewarded by a price increment, if they do worse, there's a certain price reduction.

Bonus / penalty rules can be applied to a number of energy relevant parameters:

• efficiency of traction equipment
• mass per seat
• k-values of passenger coaches