Highway Administrator Jonathan Gulliver and Interim Transportation Secretary and MBTA General Manager Phil Eng testify before the Senate Committee on Post Audit and Oversight on Tuesday, March 24, 2026. Photo by Alison Kuznitz | State House News Service

As MassDOT reboots its quest to find new highway service plaza operators, transportation leaders sought to assure disgruntled lawmakers Tuesday that they have remediated issues flagged by the inspector general on the first botched procurement.

Sen. Mark Montigny, chair of the Senate Committee on Post Audit and Oversight, was not easily convinced the outcome this time around would be different as he lingered on the fiasco of Irish retailer Applegreen walking away from contract talks for a 35-year lease on all 18 plazas.

“This sucked last time,” Montigny said.

“I agree,” replied Highway Administrator and Undersecretary of Transportation Jonathan Gulliver.

He testified alongside Interim Transportation Secretary and MBTA General Phil Eng – both of whom emphasized they were not involved in the failed procurement.

Sen. Ryan Fattman said he had a “lot of hope that this process will play out in a much different way.” The Sutton Republican questioned which MassDOT employees have been held accountable for the ordeal last year.

“Obviously, a secretary lost their job over this – at least I’m assuming that’s a large portion of the reason,” Fattman said, referring to former Secretary Monica Tibbitts-Nutt who resigned in October.

Eng said Scott Bosworth, a former MassDOT undersecretary who played a key role in the early stages of the original service plaza project, is not involved in any procurements. Bosworth, whose communications with Applegreen drew criticism from rival bidder Global Partners, is now chief of transit-oriented development at the MBTA.

“I’m not aware of any other consequences. I mean, the roles that people play have been adjusted,” Eng said. “No one involved in the past procurement is on this procurement and selection committee. We think that’s an important component to doing things.”

Gulliver said the second effort to decide the future of 18 service plazas comes with new guardrails. Those include simplified financial scoring, a double-blind evaluation process across technical and financial teams, a revived oversight body, enhanced conflict of interest disclosures, a more rigorously documented process, and bundling all of the plazas into three geographic areas that could boost competition among bidders.

The changes to the RFP process appear to be a direct response to the problems with the first flawed procurement that Inspector General Jeffrey Shapiro identified last month. In his testimony Tuesday, Shapiro recapped key findings surrounding conflicts of interest, communications violations, scoring criteria, faulty documentation and live scoring, among others.

“One of the most challenging elements of the last procurement is that the financial evaluation was in part based on projected, non-binding revenues and subjective elements,” Gulliver said.

Applegreen and Global Partners had sparred over the value of their plans when it came to analyzing projected revenue and capital investments. Revenue accounted for about a quarter of the total score in the first procurement, but Gulliver said MassDOT has now increased that weight to 60 percent.

“It is based on a guaranteed maximum price, a straight percentage of revenue rather than projections, and the value of capital improvements that are going to be made,” Gulliver said. “It is mathematically based. It is not subjective.”

Montigny interjected, “That’s the first good thing I’ve heard since this thing imploded, so I appreciate that.” Gulliver chuckled as Montigny then qualified, “It doesn’t mean you’ve got me yet.”

In its new contracting approach, MassDOT is adding a layer of oversight by reviving the Public Private Partnership Commission, with members to be appointed by state officials such as Gov. Maura Healey.

Shapiro said he was intrigued by the commission’s potential, but warned there’s no history yet of it producing successful projects. Gulliver contended the commission would allow the state to “leverage private sector capital and expertise, and transfer appropriate risks, and establish long-term performance standards that are contractually enforced.”

Montigny requested that Shapiro’s office stay engaged throughout the procurement process, insisting the inspector general should be “directly involved in any sizable bid.”

Shapiro pushed back on increased involvement.

“We want to be careful that we continue to maintain our oversight role, as opposed to an operations role,” Shapiro said.

Eng said MassDOT welcomes oversight from Shapiro’s office and the Attorney General’s Office.

“And while the inspector general’s report ultimately found that there was nothing illegal about the previous procurement, we agree that there are areas that we can and must strengthen the process with lessons learned for all procurements going forward,” Eng said.

The second procurement effort will ramp up Wednesday with a MassDOT “industry day” on service plazas.