V3372046 Sole Source Justification (redacted).pdf

Procurement Request No. V3372046

DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION

OFFICE OF THE ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR RESEARCH AND TECHNOLOGY

VOLPE NATIONAL TRANSPORTATION SYSTEMS CENTER (VOLPE CENTER)

ADVANCED VEHICLE TECHNOLOGY DIVISION

JUSTIFICATION & APPROVAL (J&A) FOR OTHER THAN FULL AND OPEN COMPETITION (SOLE SOURCE)

A. Description of Supplies/Services.

This new contract initiative for FY26-27 provides funding to add new tasks and deliverables and continue the ongoing research execution performed under contract 6913G625C100007 with Partnership for Analysis and Research in Tra c Safety (PARTS) members and the trusted third-party to performing analyses of vehicle safety performance using non-federal vehicle-level information augmented with non-sensitive federal information, including U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) highway crash data.

The National Highway Tra c Safety Administration (NHTSA) initiated a Phase I prototype of PARTS in 2017. In Phase I, facilitated by the Mitre Corporation (Mitre), participants explored the feasibility of a data trust with auto-industry original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), and the Volpe Center administered the contract for Phase I. PARTS Phase I established collaborative and trusting working relationships amongst the partners. NHTSA and participating OEMs had securely shared a limited amount of data as a basis for collaboration on automatic emergency braking (AEB) analyses to discern its safety performance. Mitre aggregated, de-identi ed, and processed the partner data to allow for analysis. PARTS Phases II and III built upon the model established in Phase I, expanding the scope of the data trust to examine the e ectiveness of additional technologies, incorporating additional crash data and vehicle data from former and new OEM members that have joined the partnership. PARTS Phase IV is underway to complete the research topics selected by the PARTS Research Working Group (RWG) and that was voted upon at successive All-Hands meetings with the approval of the PARTS Governance board. In Phase IV, Volpe staff updated the database analytical methodology and coordinated the execution of the Volpe pre-crash typology against the data set that Mitre collected from NHTSA. The Volpe team conducted a comparison analysis to find that Mitre’s implementation of the Volpe developed typology achieved a better than 95% match to similar Volpe analyses with historical data.

Volpe staff, as permanent members of the PARTS RWG, worked with the PARTS RWG and the methodology subgroup to define the statistical analysis for Mitre to conduct against the merged NHTSA and OEM dataset. PARTS Phase IV research topics include, but are not limited to, analysis of ADAS effectiveness using FARS data, injury reduction and mitigation analysis, effectiveness of ADAS technologies using Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT) data collected from OEM vehicles via telematics and dealer visits. During Phase IV, the RWG continued to add topics to the list of to-do research topics.

These topics were suggested and/or asked for by Volpe, NHTSA, and OEM participants and focus on the efficacy of ADAS systems in harmful, but less frequent pre-crash scenarios such as intersection crash avoidance, efficacy of telematics data as a data source, the impact and the benefit of infrastructure data in crash avoidance.

The Volpe Center requires contractor support to enable the continued PARTS research between the Volpe Center, USDOT, OEMs, and the trusted third-party responsible to maintain and execute research per the PARTS Governance Board to inform the government about the potential safety bene ts that may be realized through collaborative research.

As a result of market research, the Volpe Center identi ed the Mitre Corporation’s Center for Advanced Aviation System Development (CAASD) as being uniquely quali ed to perform the work considering their combination of:

Their status as a Federally Funded Research and Development Center (FFRDC) which, by law, cannot compete with industry and does not pro t from the government’s decisions.

Five years of experience as the PARTS trusted third-party and irreplaceable relationships that have been meticulously established and maintained with OEMs and NHTSA. CAASD maintains active cooperative agreements with NHTSA, and that include data sharing and use permissions.

To meet the Volpe Center and PARTS’ needs, the contractor must meet the following requirements:

1. Must have independence from the government so as to provide assurance that data transmitted by partners will be protected and will not lead to legal/enforcement actions.

2. Must be independent from automotive manufacturers so as to provide assurance that proprietary data will be protected and will not be used to gain a competitive advantage.

3. Must have established agreements in place with OEMs to maintain continuity of the PARTS partnership.

4. Must be able to demonstrate experience and expertise as a trusted third party to receive, secure and manage proprietary data and intellectual property (IP) from industry; and provide a forum for industry and government to complete and discuss aggregate analyses of vehicle level data without exposing partner data.

5. Must be able to demonstrate expertise establishing and executing security mechanisms and governance for a data management system to safeguard IP collected from industry.

6. Must be able to demonstrate expertise and practical application of current methodologies and analytical models used to characterize vehicle safety technology.

The Volpe Center estimates that the value of this work will be $ and the Contracting O cer (CO) has reviewed the IGCE and determined that the anticipated cost to the Government will be fair and reasonable. The contract shall extend from award through Feb 28, 2027.

B. Market Research.

Market research was conducted by of the Advanced Vehicle Technology Division (V-337).

Market research was conducted periodically between September 2020 through October 2025 most recently. Market research was completed using all of the following:

Discussions with sta from NHTSA and the about previous work on PARTS as subject matter experts and as the

Contracting O cer Representatives (COR) on previous iterations of the PARTS program.

Discussions with Volpe teams that have completed contracts with Mitre and other federal contractors to conduct collaborative research.

Discussion with sta from Mitre that maintain the cooperative agreements with the OEMs.

Discussion with representatives of the OEMs at an in-person PARTS all-hands meeting held on October 15-16, 2025.

Review of other FFRDC discovered via internet searches.

Conversations with NHTSA and the OEM made explicitly clear that the PARTS partnership will fail and not be reconstituted with a contractor other than Mitre and its CAASD FFRDC. The OEM representatives made it clear that the establishment of the trust inherent to PARTS was a laborious multi-year (2017 through 2025) process that incurred costs to each OEM that they would not be willing to invest again absent Mitre.

There are no other known sources within the private or public sector that are able to both conduct the work with impartiality and independence from both the government and the automotive industry, that also has access to sensitive data and information systems.

FFRDC in accordance with FAR Part 35.017 are capable of providing the independence and impartiality, and may receive access to vehicle manufacturer’s sensitive data and information systems and personally identi able information in the form of Vehicle Identi cation Numbers (VIN) from government crash databases.

There are 42 FFRDCs according to the National Science Foundation. Only one (1), CAASD has the requisite experience with the systems and data that make up PARTS and is capable of meeting the technical requirements.

As required by FAR subpart 5.2, the Contracting O cer (CO) posted Sources Sought Notice ID V3372046 to SAM.gov on February 5, 2026 – no eligible FFRDCs responded.

C. Supporting Rationale.

(1) Sole Source: In accordance with FAR 6.302-3, Industrial mobilization; engineering, developmental, or research capability; or expert services, Mitre’s CAASD as the FFRDC currently serving as the incumbent independent third party satis es the FAR 6.302-3(a)(2)(ii) requirement that “Full and open competition need not be provided for when it is necessary to award the contract to a particular source or sources in order- (ii) To establish or maintain an essential engineering, research, or development capability to be provided by an educational or other nonpro t institution or a federally funded research and development center.”

(i) Explain why a particular expertise or level of expertise is critical to the requirement.

The best statutory authority for the proposed contract with Mitre is 10 U.S.C. 3204(a)(3) or 41 U.S.C.

3304(a)(3, as cited authorities under FAR 6.302-3, which states that “full and open competition need not be provided when it is necessary to award the contract to a particular source or sources in order – (ii) To establish or maintain an essential engineering, research, or development capability to be provided by an educational or other nonpro t institution or a federally funded research and development center.”

In accordance with FAR 6.302-3(a)(2)(ii), it is necessary to award this contract to Mitre to maintain (and improve) PARTS, a collaborative safety data sharing system, whose “essential engineering, research, or development capability[ies]” improve transportation safety nationwide. Given that Mitre is the FFRDC that previously worked on Phases I, II, and III of the PARTS program, it is most advantageous to the government to award this work to Mitre—the best suited FFRDC.

(ii) Provide evidence that this contractor is the only source that has the required expertise, referencing the market research outcome.

Mitre’s demonstrated successes as a trusted third party between the automobile (PARTS) and aviation, Aviation Safety Information Analysis and Sharing (ASIAS) system for the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), industries and the government is a unique expertise that is essential to the success of this e ort.

As a not-for-pro t FFRDC, Mitre does not accept contracts from commercial entities and is, therefore, uniquely independent from the commercial entities and, consequently, is independent of the automotive industry and its suppliers. It is the government’s requirement that the contractor shall be independent from industry to eliminate potential con icts of interest and maintain OEM data-sharing that has potential to include IP. This independence is also critical for ensuring any discussions or e ectiveness analyses do not provide undue advantage to any participant.

As a private sector not for pro t FFRDC, Mitre’s CAASD maintains independence from the government.

This is a requirement for the partnership to assure industry participants that data collected cannot be used to initiate any legal or regulatory actions.

(iii) De ne the impact in terms of feasibility, time, and cost of educating another contractor to obtain that expertise.

All other organizations seeking to complete this work would require a prohibitive amount of funding and time to complete the necessary outreach, negotiations, legal reviews and corporate approvals with multiple OEMs to attain Mitre’s current status as the PARTS trusted third-party. The establishment of PARTS Phases I, II, and III combined lasted more than 24 months and required constant attention by