SOLICITATION NOTICE
A -- BROAD AGENCY ANNOUNCEMENT - FHWA 2008 Exploratory Advanced Research Program
- Notice Date
- 11/16/2007
- Notice Type
- Solicitation Notice
- NAICS
- 541712
— Research and Development in the Physical, Engineering, and Life Sciences (except Biotechnology)
- Contracting Office
- Department of Transportation, Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), Office of Acquisition Management, HAAM, Mail Stop W36-455 1200 New Jersey Avenue, SE, Washington, DC, 20590, UNITED STATES
- ZIP Code
- 00000
- Solicitation Number
- DTFH61-08-R-00006
- Response Due
- 12/17/2007
- Point of Contact
- Robin Hobbs, Contract Specialist, Phone (202) 366-4004, Fax (202) 366-3705, - Ben Zaslow, Contracting Officer/Team Leader, Phone 202-366-4251, Fax 202-366-3705
- E-Mail Address
-
robin.hobbs@dot.gov, benjamin.zaslow@dot.gov
- Description
- TECHNICAL POC: Terry Halkyard, FHWA, (202)493-3467; Terry.Halkyard@dot.gov KEY DATES: In order to be considered for funding, all proposers MUST submit pre-proposals by not later than 4PM EST, Dec 17, 2007. The FHWA anticipates that evaluations will proceed generally as follows: (1) BAA Opens Nov 16, 2007; (2) Pre-Proposals Due Dec 17, 2007; (3) Full Proposal Invitations Feb 25, 2008; (4) Full Proposals Due Apr 10, 2008; (5) Initial Contract Awards Sept 2008. OBJECTIVES/DESCRIPTION: The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) is soliciting proposals under its Exploratory Advanced Research Program (EARP) for research and development (R&D) projects that could lead to transformational changes and truly revolutionary advances in highway engineering and intermodal surface transportation in the US. The objective of this BAA is to stimulate R&D in high risk, high payoff projects that address technology and knowledge gaps. FHWA is especially interested in building upon, adapting or otherwise leveraging and utilizing the R&D investments made by other Federal exploratory advanced research programs such as those of the Department of Defense, Department of Energy, and the National Science Foundation. PROGRAM SCOPE: The program scope is intentionally ambitious and broad to address the wide spectrum of topics and objectives that the funded investigations will strategically support. Advanced research in a wide spectrum of science and technology areas is intended. All research is intended to have the common objective of addressing the technology and knowledge gaps described below. Strategically, this research will help the FHWA improve highway safety, reduce congestion on the nation?s highways, reduce environmental and health impacts of the nation?s highways and reduce the long term costs and improve the efficiency of the nation?s highways. This program is intended to spur innovation and focus on high risk and high pay-off R&D projects. Incremental advances and demonstrations or evaluations of existing technologies are not within the scope of this program. The following focus areas are of particular strategic interest and relevance to the FHWA and proposals in all of these areas are highly encouraged. This guidance is offered to help Offerors in the development of proposals of particular interest to FHWA: Highway Safety; Dramatic Breakthroughs in Planning and Environment; Innovative Solutions to Understanding and Applying Transportation Policy; Innovative Solutions to Reduce Traffic Congestion; Innovative Infrastructure Solutions; Cross-cutting Exploratory Advanced Research. The following sections provide amplification of each focus area. These are not intended to be all inclusive, and all creative and innovative ideas and solutions will be considered. HIGHWAY SAFETY: The human and economic loss due to highway crashes in the US remains at unacceptable levels. Over 43,000 people die on America's roadway every year and almost 3 million are injured. The US Department of Transportation (DOT), States, localities and the private sector are all working to dramatically improve safety and reduce the numbers of fatalities and injuries by 20 percent by the end of 2008. The ability to reach this goal has been constrained by a number of factors. Renewed research, technology, and innovations are key components to finding solutions to the problems. Current R&D programs at FWHA and other US DOT agencies are directed at short-term safety improvement initiatives, as well as longer-term research, especially into Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) solutions. Major research into the understanding of crashes, especially from the integrated perspective of the driver, vehicle, and infrastructure is underway as part of the Strategic Highway Research Program (SHRP) II at the National Academy of Sciences/Transportation Research Board. Exploratory advanced safety research proposals that would supplement and complement these existing research programs are sought. Proposals dealing with the following areas, each more fully defined below, are especially welcomed: (1) Enhanced understanding of the importance of the visibility of the roadway. This could include improved understanding of various levels of roadway lighting, minimum levels of sign and pavement markings visibility to the driver, excessive signage, distractive features, etc. Visibility issues both at night or daytime are encouraged. (2) In concert with the States, vehicle manufactures and other in the private sector, create the parameters for a long-term ground traffic control system that would individually monitor all drivers and vehicles, their roadways, and environmental conditions; assess the likelihood of a crash or vehicle conflict on a real-time basis; utilize a communications system to warn of potential conflicts; and eventually have the capacity to take control of vehicles in unsafe circumstances that could not be prevented, but for such assumption of vehicle control. (3) Enhanced understanding of the dynamic relationship between the vehicle (all types) and the roadway and roadside. These relationships include the friction between the vehicle and roadway and roadside surfaces, the mechanisms associated with inducing rollover, side contacts with barriers, and side slope effects. The relationships developed in these efforts will serve to improve the analysis of crashes (including crash simulations) and the development of advanced vehicle control systems and safer highway features. PLANNING AND ENVIRONMENT: If we assume that the trends of the past 80+ years are reasonable predictors of the future then traffic, both passenger and freight, will continue increasing and highways will need to accommodate this increasing traffic. In this case, more will have to be known about how to plan these highways; how to avoid, minimize and mitigate the environmental consequences of constructing these highways; and how to deal with the property acquisition and management issues associated with these highways. Good planning relies upon good data. This includes data on traffic volume, speed, time of day and time of year variations, spatial distribution of population, employment and commercial activities and similar items. These data items are used to calibrate traffic models and forecast future traffic. Many of metropolitan areas use traffic models as a basis for producing long-range, i.e., 20+ years, transportation plans. These traffic models require the data on current volumes, speed, etc. Obtaining this data is expensive, so much so that some areas use what is, in effect, simulated data. Other related data, e.g., accident data and pavement condition data are used. These data are used to develop medium range metropolitan programs for highway and transit projects expected to be implemented in, typically, 5 years. The pavement related data acquisition for this activity is sometimes a mixture of the reports of various agencies (e.g., states, cities, counties, villages, park districts) depending on which agency has maintenance responsibility for the road. Environmental analysis and assessment relies upon measurement and monitoring of levels of various species of chemical compounds (or in some cases elements) in the water, in the soil and in the air in the vicinity of current and planned highways. Monitoring is done both preceding environmental documentation of a highway action and as part of ongoing system analysis. One important use of such data is to calibrate existing predictive methodologies. As with traffic, each of the species would have a concentration that varied by time of day and time of year. Existing monitoring typically is done by state and federal resource agencies (e.g. US EPA, state air quality agencies). The quality of the data thus obtained may be suboptimum or for many species (e.g., complex toxins), entirely absent. The needs identified above are based upon the assumption that existing trends will continue. It can also be reasonably assumed that the trend of increasing traffic with time (passenger, freight or both) might be reversed. There have been several short-term reversals of this trend in the past (less travel during gas rationing during World War II and during the two gasoline shortages in the 1970s). Proposals addressing the following needs are highly encouraged: (1) Improve the data collected, systemize the data for easier use, and reduce the cost of the data collection for both the 20+ year planning activity and the 5 year programming. (2) Improve both the environmental data collected and reduce the cost of environmental data collection. (3) Develop an early prediction system that would indicate the potential for a reversal in the trend of increasing traffic based on technological change. TRANSPORTATION POLICY: The focus of exploratory advanced research in the area of Transportation Policy is to understand the complex socio-economic interdependencies of surface transportation systems and the policies that create, maintain and operate these systems. This research is also intended to develop the ability to model, analyze and plan surface transportation solutions over different spatial and time scales. These innovations are expected to originate either from new ideas or else from adaptations of ideas from other fields or disciplines. The innovations expected to result from this advanced research program, if successful, should provide policy makers with forecasting tools that can be used to predict possible transportation outcomes based on financial decisions, condition and performance of the existing transportation system and future transportation trends. Proposals are encouraged that explore the interdependent relationships between surface transportation systems, innovative financial mechanisms used to fund major infrastructure projects, advanced modeling systems and tools that could be used to analyze and predict future impacts of various transportation scenarios.
- Place of Performance
- Address: TBD
- Zip Code: 20590
- Country: UNITED STATES
- Zip Code: 20590
- Record
- SN01453810-W 20071118/071116223556 (fbodaily.com)
- Source
-
FedBizOpps Link to This Notice
(may not be valid after Archive Date)
| FSG Index | This Issue's Index | Today's FBO Daily Index Page |