9065 - Questions and Answers.pdf

FLORIDA DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION

Procurement Office

605 Suwannee Street, MS 20 Tallahassee, Florida 32399-0450

Phone: (850) 414-4100

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

DATE: April 10, 2025

BID NO.: DOT-ITB-25-9065-CA

BID TITLE: Travel Monitoring System for Emergency Event Polling

OPENING DATE/TIME: April 16, 2025 at 10:00 am (LOCAL TIME)

Notice is hereby given of the following changes to the above-referenced SOLICITATION:

• Questions and Answers provided below:

QUESTION 1 Would FDOT be willing to extend the Proposal Due Date by one month?

ANSWER 1 No, due to the deadline for this project.

QUESTION 2

Would FDOT be willing to extend some of the RFP dates such as the system must be delivered within 60 days of the vendor meeting to 180 days?

ANSWER 2 See response to Question 1.

QUESTION 3

Is FDOT willing to consider a customized solution or is FDOT more interested in a commercial off the shelf (COTS) solution?

ANSWER 3 The Department is interested in the COTS.

QUESTION 4

Is FDOT willing to consider a service provider instead of a vendor?

Example: would FDOT consider a programming staff solution with customized code for the system?

ANSWER 4 SaaS only.

QUESTION 5 Is FDOT willing to share what the budget is for this project?

ANSWER 5 The budget is undetermined at this time.

QUESTION 6

Is FDOT willing to share the annual budget for the maintenance of the system?

ANSWER 6 The annual budget is undetermined at this time.

QUESTION 7 Will FDOT be selecting the lowest bidder solution for this project?

ANSWER 7 No, see Section 7) Intended Award of the solicitation document.

QUESTION 8

Would FDOT provide the system architecture documentation for the current and envisioned systems to prospective bidders?

ANSWER 8 No.

QUESTION 9

Would FDOT provide system requirements of the currently deployed system and for the system envisioned?

ANSWER 9 No.

QUESTION 10

Would FDOT provide system requirements of the currently deployed system and for the system envisioned?

ANSWER 10 No.

QUESTION 11

Would the vendor be required to provide software to communicate with multiple hardware devices deployed at the continuous counting stations as a part of this RFP?

ANSWER 11

No, the vendor will need an NDA with each manufacturer to communicate with multiple hardware devices.

QUESTION 12

Will FDOT provide a complete system inventory of field devices including location, manufacturer, model, current polling rates, and communications methods?

ANSWER 12 This information will be provided to the awarded vendor.

QUESTION 13

Would the vendor be required to provide software to communicate with multiple hardware devices deployed at the continuous counting stations as a part of this RFP?

ANSWER 13 Yes.

QUESTION 14

Will FDOT provide a complete system inventory of field devices including location, manufacturer, model, current polling rates, and communications methods?

ANSWER 14 See response to Question 12.

QUESTION 15

Would FDOT be willing to share the list of quality checks in the TPAS system?

ANSWER 15 No.

QUESTION 16

Would FDOT be willing to share the summary file outputs, packages and procedures referred to in the problem statement as number 1?

ANSWER 16 No.

QUESTION 17

Would FDOT be willing to provide the APPENDICES from the SPS transfer data application manual referenced in the RFP problem statement as number 3?

ANSWER 17 No.

QUESTION 18

The title of this project indicates Emergency Event Polling. Will the non-emergency event data need to be polled?

ANSWER 18 See Exhibit “A”, Scope of Services, Phase 3 and Phase 4.

QUESTION 19

If vendor’s solution will not include direct communication with counting stations, are all datasets collected from the continuous counting stations stored in an accessible database that a vendor’s solution can access?

ANSWER 19 No.

QUESTION 20

Would FDOT be willing to provide the number, location, manufacturer, and model of non-motorized data collection devices utilized for inclusion into the system?

ANSWER 20

There are 250 locations, ECO Counters: Urban and Mobile Multi and Q- Free: CMU.

QUESTION 21

Will FDOT provide business process diagrams for the current TMS solution?

ANSWER 21 No.

QUESTION 22

Will FDOT require all data pass quality checks prior to uploading data to the web-based software as a service TMS solution publishes data? If so, how many quality checks and what are the quality checking requirements/rules that must be adhered to prior to publication?

ANSWER 22 FHWA Traffic Monitoring Guide quality checking requirements and rules.

QUESTION 23

Will FDOT provide prospective respondents with the current database schema used to manage TMS data, including tables, fields, queries/views and relationships. Metadata for data fields will also be useful in preparing responses.

ANSWER 23 No.

QUESTION 24

Would FDOT be willing to share the names of the Technical Review Committee Members, the Project Manager and the budget for this effort?

ANSWER 24

Technical Review Committee Members are Joey Gordon, Eric Griffin and JoAnna Hand. The Project Manager is Eric Griffin. The budget is undetermined at this time.

QUESTION 25

Is the listed ~19000 short-term counts the total number of portables sites, or does this refer to the number of short-term sites collected each year as part of the rolling count cycle? If the per year count total, how many total short-term count sites are there for data migration, storage, reporting, and support?

ANSWER 25

For 2024, Count Year 16,553 PTMS were collected; therefore, this amount will be required for data migration, storage, reporting, and support.

QUESTION 26

Of the 335 CCS sites, how many are EP sites for phase 2, CCS sites for phase 3, and WIM sites for phase 3? 299 EP sites How many of the sites EP, CCS, and WIM, are IVR?

ANSWER 26 There are 50 sites.

QUESTION 27

Does FDOT anticipate the scope of the number of sites to grow in any of these categories in the term of the contract?

ANSWER 27

Yes, because we have occasionally about 5 to 10 site conversions annually from PTMS to CCS.

QUESTION 28

Does FDOT anticipate the number of binned vs IVR sites to significantly change over the term of the contract (e.g. CCS and EP sites upgraded to

IVR)?

ANSWER 28

Yes, because FHWA is currently discussing data to be submitted IVR rather than binned through their new version of TMAS.

QUESTION 29

Are there current or anticipated storage requirements on image or video data?

ANSWER 29

No video data storage is required; however, image storage will be useful when conducting vehicle verification and validation.

QUESTION 30

Problem Statement 1 states “Traffic counter maintenance data is stored in additional Oracle tables with an update interface and a query interface.”

What Objective and deliverable does this problem statement correspond to?

ANSWER 31

Deliverable #17 TMS CCS/WIM Device Polling and Standard Report Development.

QUESTION 32

Does bi-weekly in deliverable #2 “Participate in bi-weekly project status meetings” refer to twice a week or once every two weeks for meetings?

ANSWER 32 Once every two weeks for meetings.

QUESTION 33

Deliverable #8 identifies “Develop and run legacy system downloads to feed to the TMS” as a data migration objective. Does FDOT have a prescribed system download already?

ANSWER 33 Yes.

QUESTION 34

If so, can FDOT identify the mechanism and format (SFTP, API, Filesharing)?

ANSWER 34 Preferred API into Azure FDOT DevOps or AWS.

QUESTION 35

What is the expected duration of #14 “parallel operation data between TPAS and TMS” for validation?

ANSWER 35 At least five years or on “as needed basis”.

QUESTION 36

Are there any system constraints, resource limitations, or dependencies on a single individual for critical knowledge or execution that could represent a risk to delivering within the required timeline?

ANSWER 36

Yes, resource constraints and single individual(s) for critical knowledge or execution.

QUESTION 37

Deliverable #8 identifies “Develop and perform a data migration method to provide data from the solution to the legacy system.” Does FDOT have a prescribed mechanism and format to provide data from the TMS to TPAS?

If so, can FDOT identify the mechanism and format (SFTP, API, Filesharing)? What is the expected duration for the TMS to provide data to TPAS? Are there any system constraints, resource limitations, or dependencies on a single individual for critical knowledge or execution that could represent a risk to delivering within the required timeline?

ANSWER 37 See response to Question 36.

QUESTION 38

How is the data generated from the monitoring system transmitted?

Through queuing mechanisms such as EventGrid?

ANSWER 38

Generally, the automated traffic recorders transmit data by cellular network services to Unix environment server which stores the data into the Oracle cloud.

QUESTION 39

How is the data generated from the monitoring system transmitted? Via API requests?

ANSWER 39

API requests are required if you develop the solution outside the Department’s existing infrastructure.

QUESTION 40

Is data collected at 15-minute and 60-minute intervals, or is it gathered more frequently and simply stored/reported at those precision levels?

ANSWER 40

Currently, data is collected at 60-minute intervals; however, we need a solution to collect 15-minute intervals because we need to report real-time data along the State Highway System.

QUESTION 41

What is the anticipated volume or average number of data points being collected?

ANSWER 41

19,553 data points; however, 334 are Continuous Counts Stations (CCS) and the remaining are short-term duration count stations.

QUESTION 42 What are the sizes of these data points?

ANSWER 42

The following numbers are for CCS: file sizes ranging from 5 KB to 99 KB (approx. 432 files) and the file sizes ranging from 1,011 KB to 3,182 KB per file (approx. 28 files).

QUESTION 43 What type of schema is used for the data (XML, JSON)?

ANSWER 43 XML. But the data is binary which is converted and produces an ASCII file.

QUESTION 44

If the original system was developed in the early 2000s, is SOAP being used?

ANSWER 44 Yes.

QUESTION 45 Does the system require real-time streaming or scheduled data runs?

ANSWER 45 Yes.

QUESTION 46

Will the current system be fully available for evaluation to extract any additional business requirements?

ANSWER 46 Yes.

QUESTION 47

Are there Minority Business Enterprise (MBE) or Disadvantaged Business Enterprise (DBE) requirements associated with this project?

ANSWER 47 See section 5) Diversity Achievement of the solicitation document.

QUESTION 48 If so, are they strict requirements or organizational goals?

ANSWER 48 N/A

QUESTION 49 Is there a budget that FDOT can share for this project?

ANSWER 49 See response to Question 5.

QUESTION 50

Have the project funds already been encumbered, at least for the first year?

ANSWER 50 No. The encumbrance will be issued after the award.

QUESTION 51 Will this project be funded with state and/or federal dollars?

ANSWER 51 State funding will be used for this project.

QUESTION 52

Is there a preference for a SaaS solution that is an existing Commercial Off-The-Shelf (COTS) product, or is FDOT open to a custom-built application hosted in the cloud?

ANSWER 52 No preference.

QUESTION 53

Can you clarify why Deliverables 1, 15, 26, and 37 are listed as non-billable?

ANSWER 53 These services are incidental.

QUESTION 54

Would FDOT consider an alternative proposed billing cycle for Deliverable 2?

ANSWER 54 Yes.

QUESTION 55

Why is Deliverable 38 only being requested for two years, Deliverable 27 for three years, while Deliverable 16 is requested for the full five-year duration?

ANSWER 55 This decision is in the best interest of the department.

QUESTION 56 Are there existing vendors currently supporting the TPAS application?

ANSWER 56 Yes.

QUESTION 57 If so, can you provide the names of those vendors?

ANSWER 57 Yes, Marlin Engineering, Inc.