Designing Park-PFI Scoring Criteria — Lessons from a Real 500-Point Scoring Table [2026 Edition]

Under Article 5-4 of the Urban Park Act, the selection of applicants in Park-PFI is conducted in two stages. Understanding this two-stage structure is the prerequisite for designing evaluation criteria.

Stage 1: Screening (Eligibility Review and Qualitative Assessment)

Stage 1 is the screening process under Article 5-4, Paragraph 1. Applicants are assessed on the following dimensions to determine who advances to Stage 2:

• Alignment with the guidelines: Does the applicant's plan satisfy the conditions set out in the solicitation guidelines?
• Feasibility: Is the plan realistically executable? (Confirmed through supporting documentation)
• Technical capacity: Does the applicant have the track record and organizational structure needed for construction and management?
• Financial soundness: Is the applicant free from net liabilities as of the most recent financial statements? (Confirmed through objective documentation)

Stage 1 is a qualitative assessment, and decisions are essentially binary — pass or fail. Only those who pass advance to the quantitative scoring in Stage 2.

Stage 2: Evaluation (Quantitative Scoring)

Stage 2 is the evaluation process under Article 5-4, Paragraph 2. A selection committee comprising at least two academic experts conducts quantitative scoring of each application.

The requirement for at least two academic experts is a statutory obligation (Article 5-5 of the Urban Park Act). Municipal staff alone cannot conduct the review. In Koriyama City's case, the committee included a visiting professor of PPP studies at Toyo University, a Japan Heritage producer from the Agency for Cultural Affairs, the executive director of a park management foundation, and a certified public accountant.

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The MLIT guidelines propose the following six evaluation items for quantitative scoring in Stage 2.

Evaluation Item ①: Business Implementation Policy

Evaluates the applicant's approach to promoting park utilization, improving park quality, stimulating the local economy, and building community partnerships. This item essentially asks: "What is this operator genuinely trying to achieve for the park and the community?"

A proposal framing plans as "renovating underutilized park space into a children's activity area and making it the anchor for community events" will generally score higher than one simply promising "to build a café and turn a profit."

Evaluation Item ②: Business Implementation Structure

Evaluates the roles and responsibilities of consortium members, staffing, track records of each participating company, financial soundness, and — notably — the extent of local firm participation.

The MLIT guidelines' explicit inclusion of "local firm participation" reflects the design principle that Park-PFI is not merely a revenue-generating enterprise but a mechanism for stimulating local economic activity. Scoring structures that favor consortiums combining national firms with local businesses over single national-firm applicants are common.

Evaluation Item ③: Facility Installation Plan

Evaluates convenience enhancement facilities, landscaping, architectural design, accessibility, and the construction plan. This is the item where visual design proposals — renderings, 3D images — can have the greatest impact.

Evaluation Item ④: Facility Management and Operations Plan

Evaluates the day-to-day management plan, safety and disaster response, and community engagement. This item assesses not just the opening day plan but the long-term continuity of management over the project period.

Evaluation Item ⑤: Business Plan

Evaluates the financing plan, revenue and cost projections, prospects for sustainable operations, and — importantly — withdrawal risk mitigation.

The explicit inclusion of "withdrawal risk mitigation" is significant. By requiring applicants to plan in advance for business difficulties (securing a successor operator, security deposits, insurance, etc.), the scoring system is designed to reduce municipal risk exposure.

Evaluation Item ⑥: Price Proposal

Evaluates the municipality's cost share for designated park facility construction (lower is better) and the proposed usage fee for revenue facilities (higher is better). This is the sole purely quantitative competitive dimension.

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Koriyama City's scoring table for Kaiseizan Park — totaling 500 points plus 8 incentive points — is included in full in the solicitation guidelines.

Full Scoring Table

Reading the Design Intent

Management and operations at 100 points (20%): Because Park-PFI was integrated with designated management, the largest single allocation goes to assessing management capability. "Appropriate maintenance" alone accounts for 40 points.

Designated park facility construction at 100 points (20%): The structure of 80 points for facility-by-facility plans (8 categories × 10 points) ensures specificity. Rather than accepting vague commitments ("we will comprehensively improve the facilities"), the design forces applicants to articulate concrete plans for each facility type.

Revenue sharing at 40 points (within Major Category 5): Combining designated management fee reduction and revenue returned to the park management authority within 70-point Category 5 enables fair, objective comparison of financial viability.

Neutralizing price competition with "value-added proposal": Price-competitive elements are distributed across Category 5 (70 points), while Category 6 (30 points) draws out creativity and innovation. The resulting balance makes price dumping relatively unlikely.

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The most damaging error in evaluation criteria design is over-weighting the price proposal, which induces price competition.

The Price-Dumping Risk

Assigning excessive points to the proposed usage fee or the municipality's cost share for designated park facilities creates an incentive for operators to submit financially unviable price proposals in order to score highly. The consequences:

1. Operations deteriorate financially after launch, degrading service quality
2. In the worst case, the operator becomes insolvent and park facilities are left neglected
3. The municipality incurs the cost and effort of finding a successor operator

Alternative Competitive Dimensions

To elicit competition among applicants without driving price competition, the scoring structure should create "what will you deliver?" as the competitive axis.

Examples of effective alternative competitive dimensions:

• Richness of designated park facility improvements (area, specifications, design quality)
• Local firm participation rate (what percentage of labor costs and procurement stays in the community)
• Specificity of partnerships with surrounding areas
• Distinctiveness of revenue facility business types and their contribution to increased park visitation

Recommended Weight for Price Proposals

In practice, the total weight assigned to price-competitive elements (usage fees and municipality cost share for designated park facilities) is recommended to be kept within 15–20% of total points. In Koriyama City's case, Category 5 "Cost Reduction" (70 points), which represents the price-competitive dimension, accounts for 14% of the 500-point total (excluding incentives).

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The Purpose of Bonus Points

Awarding bonus points in the formal solicitation to applicants who participated in market sounding is an important policy mechanism for encouraging early private-sector engagement with Park-PFI.

Sounding participation:

• Provides municipalities with the inputs they need to refine solicitation conditions
• Gives private-sector businesses a realistic assessment of the business opportunity
• Initiates relationship-building between the municipality and potential operators before the formal solicitation

Through these effects, the bonus point system increases competitive interest in the solicitation and improves the likelihood of project viability.

The Koriyama City Example (Total: +8 Points)

Koriyama City awarded +5 points for trial sounding participation and +3 points for market sounding participation.

A key aspect of this design is that bonus points were awarded for two of the three sounding stages (trial → preliminary → market). The resulting structure meant that businesses which engaged earliest had the greatest competitive advantage — linking relationship-building from 2020 directly to competitive positioning in the formal solicitation.

Design Principles for Bonus Point Values

When setting bonus point values, consider the following:

• Target 1–3% of total points: If the bonus is too large, the outcome of the formal solicitation may effectively be determined by whether an applicant participated in sounding, rendering the substantive evaluation pro forma
• Ensure fair access: Use open, publicly announced sounding formats accessible to all, so that bonus points are not effectively restricted to a predetermined set of businesses
• Mandatory advance disclosure in guidelines: The existence of bonus points, the point value, and which sounding activities qualify must be stated in the solicitation guidelines. Retroactively awarding bonus points not announced in advance creates legal risk

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What Is a Minimum Qualifying Score?

A minimum qualifying score (or scoring threshold) is a safeguard establishing that proposals falling below a certain score will not be selected, regardless of how favorable their price proposal may be. It prevents the selection of proposals that fail to meet a basic standard of substantive quality.

Koriyama City's Minimum Qualifying Score

Koriyama City set two conditions as its minimum qualifying threshold:

1. Total score across all evaluators must be at least 60% of total possible points (at least 300 out of 500)
2. Each of the three primary categories — Overall Project Plan, Designated Park Facility Redevelopment, and Management and Operations — must each score at least 60%

This "60% overall and 60% across the three primary categories" design filters out skewed proposals that score well overall but are catastrophically weak in a specific area.

Preparing for the Risk of Zero Qualified Applicants

Setting the minimum qualifying score too high risks a scenario in which no applicant clears the threshold. Practical measures include:

• A threshold of 60–65% is realistic: Thresholds above 70% are often too demanding
• Use sounding to assess the proposal capacity of potential applicants in advance: Where the general level appears low, consider relaxing conditions
• Align evaluators before scoring: Conduct a pre-evaluation briefing to calibrate the scoring judgment of committee members

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Guidelines for Improving the Quality of Urban Parks through Park-PFI (Revised May 30, 2025) (2025)

Koriyama City Park-PFI Project Overview (58564.pdf) (2022)

Kaiseizan Park Park-PFI Solicitation Guidelines (April 2022) (2022)

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• How to Write Park-PFI Solicitation Guidelines — From the ten required legal items to using the MLIT template
• Park-PFI Market Sounding Guide — Designing, conducting, and leveraging market soundings
• Park-PFI Full Process Roadmap — A four-year timeline from concept to opening
• Park-PFI Case Studies: 165 Parks Nationwide — Success patterns from real-world examples