6913G623Q300041 Sole Source Justification 4 28 23_Redacted.pdf

Procurement Request No. V3142094

DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION

OFFICE OF THE ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR RESEARCH AND TECHNOLOGY

VOLPE NATIONAL TRANSPORTATION SYSTEMS CENTER (VOLPE CENTER)

V-314 Transportation Human Factors

SOLE SOURCE SAP JUSTIFICATION

A. Description of Supplies/Services.

In support of the Volpe Center's Driving Simulator projects sponsored by FRA (Volpe project # RR04AB20), the Volpe Center is tasked to perform studies on the Realtime Technologies (RTI) Driving Simulator to examine several aspects of driving behavior. As part of these experiments Volpe will program and perform complex tests on the RTI Driving Simulator including a study related to self-driving vehicles and vehicle grade crossing warning devices. The Volpe Center acquired this RTI simulator in 2014 after a competitive procurement. This RTI simulator fulfills a 30 page specification of Volpe Center requirements for a rail crossing and driving simulator (Contract DTRT5714C1002). This highly advanced and specialized hardware requires disassembly and reassembly in order for it to be moved from its existing location to the new building that Volpe will house. There is only one manufacturer for the RTI Driving Simulator which in this case is RTI itself. Specialized staff from RTI are needed to ensure the disassembly and reassembly are done correctly or we could risk damaging the simulator which has an associated approximate cost of $450,000.00.

B. Market Research.

The RTI Driving Simulator Lab currently uses proprietary software and hardware provided by Real Time Technology Inc.

During January 2023 Volpe Center technical staff (Jared Young) looked to other simulator manufacturer to see if this type of service was offered, specifically MiniSim and Driver Interactive, which are major providers of driving simulator products, to see if they had compatible products/services and neither of them did due to RTI’s Proprietary Software and Hardware. Furthermore, starting from scratch to reproduce the specifications by any company other than RTI would take months to accomplish and possibly not result in the desired device specifications. Therefore, for engineering accuracy and feasibility, RTI is the only source that can meet the Governments need.

C. Supporting Rationale.

(1) Sole Source: Only one responsible source and no other supplies or services will satisfy agency requirements.

(i) RTI designed this simulator to fulfill specific Volpe Center requirements in 2014. Only RTI can supply technical support to maintain their proprietary technology for autonomous vehicle simulation in the human factors driving simulator.

(ii) The Volpe Center invested months of engineering expertise and proprietary technology to modify the RTI Driving Simulator, and replicating that expertise and proprietary technical information with a different manufacture will not be possible. Such a strategy will be prohibitively expensive and time consuming compared to utilizing the original architects of the modifications, if achievable at all.

(iii) Tasking another vendor such as MiniSim or Driver Interactive with replicating the changes to the RTI Driving Simulator required in the project SOW will require months of support and approximately $100,000 of added budget or a new base simulator procurement to accomplish the same objective which could cost in excess of $500,000. In summary, moving the RTI Driving Simulator is not possible without RTIs involvement.

(2) Brand Name:

N/A

(3) Unusual and Compelling Urgency.