Addendum #2 - Time & Questions

RFP 484-081121 – Road Weather Forecasting Services – Addendum #2

ADDENDUM NO. 2

ISSUE DATE: 08/11/2021

This Addendum shall become and form a part of the RFP for:

RFP 484-081121 – Road Weather Forecasting Services

NOTE: PLEASE REVIEW CAREFULLY! THERE MAYBE CHANGES TO THE INFORMATION TO BE PROVIDED.

FAILURE TO ADHERE TO ANY CHANGES ADDRESSED IN THIS ADDENDUM MAY RESULT IN

DISQUALIFICATION.

In the event of a conflict between previously released information and the information contained herein, the latter shall control.

NOTE: A signed acknowledgment of this addendum cover page (this page) MUST be attached to your Technical Proposal to indicate acknowledgment of any changes. Failure to include MAY result in disqualification at the Department’s discretion. Failure to acknowledge, and address, any change in the submittal requirements MAY render the response incomplete and subject to disqualification.

Firm Name

Signature Date

Typed Name and Title

This Addendum, including all questions and answers, shall become and form a part of the original RFP package and shall be taken into account when preparing your proposal.

The purpose of this addendum is to provide the answers to the written questions received during the question and answer period of the RFP and to extend the due date and to address any necessary changes as follows:

Note: If multiple Q & A documents are posted, the most recent Q & A shall govern in the event of a conflict.

I. QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

# Questions Referenced RFP Section

Answers

1. 1

Is the page limit for Technical Proposals maximum forty-eight (48) pages or maximum thirty (30) pages?

XII. Instructions for Preparing Technical Proposals – page 7

The maximum page limit is forty-eight (48) pages. See Section II of this Addendum for corrections to Section XII. of the RFP.

2. 2

Does Georgia DOT require pavement and bridge deck temperature forecasts on an hourly basis for the next 48 hours or the next 72 hours?

XII.B.I. Current and Forecasted Weather Information and Alerts VERSUS XII.A.

Minimum Requirements – Pass/Fail Requirements and Exhibit 2.D. Current and Forecasted Weather Visualizations- pages 10 and 22

GDOT requires pavement and bridge deck temperature forecasts on an hourly basis for the next 72 hours.

3. 3

Do 6-hour increment forecasts need to be provided for the next 8 days or the next 10 days?

XII.A. Minimum Requirements – Pass/Fail Requirements VERSUS Exhibit 2.D.

Current and Forecasted Weather Visualizations- page

Six-hour increment forecasts need to be provided for the next 10 days.

4. 4

Will GDOT provide a data feed for the

RWIS weather sensors and cameras to the vendor, or will the vendor be responsible for polling this data directly from the RWIS RPUs and managing/distributing this data?

EXHIBIT 1.C. GDOT

Responsibilities page

The vendor will be responsible for pulling this data directly from the RWIS RPUs and managing/distributing this data.

5. Please define "legacy data". EXHIBIT 1.F.

Assumptions page 17

Data generated by GDOT and stored within the Vaisala system. Data migration is not expected to be performed by the selected vendor to move data from the Vaisala system to the selected vendor’s system.

6. Must all meteorologists providing the services have the CCM qualification or is the requirement satisfied if at least one of the meteorologists involved has this qualification?

Since this is a key determining factor for our proposal, we would like to get a reply as soon as possible, so we can provide you with an appropriate response.

At least one, which must be the lead meteorologist.

7. The following statements are made on page 7 of the RFP:

“Technical Proposals MUST be limited to a maximum of forty-eight

(48) pages, excluding the Cover Page, Administrative Requirements, and Organization Chart.”

“Technical Proposal which exceed the maximum thirty (30) page limit will be disqualified from further consideration.”

Please confirm that the page limit for the Technical Proposal is 48, not 30 pages.

The maximum page limit is forty-eight (48) pages.

8. The following statement is made on page 9, Section F of the RFP:

“Offeror will meet or exceed the support services described in section J of the Scope of work.”

Please confirm that this statement refers to the support services section

Scope of Work (on page 18 of the RFP)

Typo, should refer to section I. . See Section III of this Addendum for corrections to Section XII. of the RFP.

of section I (not J) of the Scope of Work (on page 18 of the RFP)

9. Would the successful contractor be responsible for polling ESS assets directly, from MADIS, or would the data be made available through a third-party data portal? If the answer is “yes, do direct polling” to this question, then the following information is required for costing and execution of the work:

a) ESS and RPU equipment specifications

b) ESS RPU site credentials

c) Required polling frequency for

ESS systems, and cameras

d) ESS communications requirements (e.g. are any sites on dialup or satellite, cellular access requirements)

e) Can GDOT reset the ESS systems to their default factory settings, if this is necessary for polling?

ESS are to be polled directly and a portal is to be provided by winning party. Data is to be provided to MADIS via a direct channel provided by the awardee.

ESS assets would be polled individually.

GDOT can provide the ESS and RPU details.

All existing ESS equipment is on cellular routers on GDOT’s internal network.

All physical ESS hardware specific to the sensors is manufactured by Vaisala.

RPU site credentials will be provided to the awardee after a contract is executed.

ESS Systems can be reset to factory settings.

Spec and specific site information can be provided.

10. Would the successful contractor be responsible for the cellular and power costs for the RWIS units? If “yes,” could GDOT provide particulars, such as:

a) If communication is done by cellular modem, are the SIM cards owned by GDOT, and are those on a public or private network?

Are there any systems powered by solar power or non-grid powered?

(methanol/propane/solid oxide… generators)?

No, maintained by GDOT contractor.

11. Will GDOT provide detailed metadata for the RWIS network (e.g., equipment makes and models, locations, maintenance history, RPU models, and credentials) to the successful contractor?

GDOT can provide detailed metadata to the vendor upon selection.

12. Please confirm that ESS system maintenance is not included in the scope of work.

ESS system maintenance is not included in the scope of work.

13. The RFP states on page 26, Section

VI:

“Prospective Offerors are expected to comply with all applicable State of

In the URL’s, replace the ones with mygdot with mydocs.dot.ga.gov/info/gdotpubs/Publicat ions/ and use the document number in the

Georgia and GDOT IT standards relevant to the technology procurement or purchase being requested. Offerors should clarify all applicable terms and conditions as part of their submitted questions, proposal, and or contract negotiations. Offerors are expected to clarify any applicable deviations from the standards below.”

Many of the standards that are identified and linked in the RFP are not publicly accessible and appear to be on a GDOT intranet. Can GDOT provide these IT Standards to the bidders?

previous URL for example for GDOT Password Authentication, use http://mydocs.dot.ga.gov/info/gdotpubs/Pu blications/8030-3.pdf

14. Could GDOT clarify the requirements for video (referenced in the RFP on page 10 (I.2.n) and on page 22 (D.3.o)), in terms of numbers and formats (e.g. fixed length, or live stream), and how we could access the data for display?

When we select an ESS, the adjacent GDOT traffic camera snapshot and/or video should be displayed to provide a visual of the roadway conditions, at least one camera at a location. Live stream if available at that location. Data would be provided from GDOT data portal.

15. Section XI of the above-named RFP says that "any Proposer exceptions to the RFP requirements..." must be made by "the deadline." And this is contained a a paragraph regarding the question deadline, which is 30 minutes from now. In other areas of the RFP, it indicates exceptions should be included in the proposal.

Do I need to send you - exceptions right now, or is including them in the proposal sufficient?

Exceptions to any of the RFP requirements should be sent prior to the closing of the solicitation as these could be considered and possibly result in changes to the RFP requirements.

However, exceptions to any contractual requirements would typically be submitted within the Proposal when a sample contract has been provided. However, it is noted that as of now, GDOT has not provided a sample contract to review.

However, it should be noted that the Department reserves the right to reject as non-responsive any proposals which contain substitutions or alternate bids and/or requirements. It should also be noted that this is not a research project for the Department and is for the provision of road weather forecasting services to be used in making decisions on how to respond to winter weather events.

16. Are offerors expected to provide a means to collect RWIS data from individual stationary and mobile RWIS sites? Or will GDOT be collecting stationary and mobile RWIS data independently and then be providing database access or some other access method to collected stationary and mobile RWIS data?

Initially collect from individual stationary sites until GDOT enables new portal for centralized access (center to center) of all RWIS/ESS/RPU sensor data.

17. Does GDOT currently employ an internal means for monitoring all

GDOT does not use Zabbix, but uses internal solution to monitor all GDOT http://mydocs.dot.ga.gov/info/gdotpubs/Publications/8030-3.pdf http://mydocs.dot.ga.gov/info/gdotpubs/Publications/8030-3.pdf

GDOT RWIS equipment assets such as Zabbix (zabbix.com)?

RWIS/ESS/RPU assets.

18. What is the current number of stationary RWIS managed by GDOT?

What is the current number of mobile RWIS managed by GDOT?

Approximately 60 stationary RWIS stations. Mobile numbers are zero.

19. Are offerors expected to support MADIS by providing regular stationary and mobile RWIS data updates?

Offeror is not responsible to get data to

MADIS.

20. Are the Service Level On-Call Initial Acknowledgement and Response times negotiable?

Not negotiable. Please see XII.

INSTRUCTIONS FOR PREPARING

TECHNICAL PROPOSALS, A. Minimum Requirements – Pass/Fail Requirements,

12. Offeror agrees to providing support services and comply with the Service Level Agreement described in the Scope of Work.

21. Can you provide the link or document for the GDOT IT Systems Security Plan that is requested as part of the

RFP?

NIST_Worksheet.xlsx

State of GA Information Security Control Standard:

https://gta-psg.georgia.gov/psg/information-security-controls-standard-ss-17-001 See attached. The areas of controls more fully documented here:

https://nvlpubs.nist.gov/nistpubs/SpecialP ublications/NIST.SP.800-53r5.pdf

22. Section J in the Exhibit I Scope of

Services refers to a “Training Plan and Services”. There is already a requirement for a document to detail the training plan. So, are the details of the Training Plan also required in this document? Please clarify, this seems like it could be redundant?

Section F. 2 of the Operate and Maintain Requirements:

H2 – Offeror should provide a training plan from another contract of similar size and scope comparable to GDOT. The training plan is a maximum of 4 pages but samples of previous training should be added as annex.

23. What is the Scope of the Cyber

Breach Insurance as required in

Section VII, A.4.?

We are looking for vendors to provide what Cyber Breach insurance coverage they currently have. GDOT will accept a minimum policy of $12.5 million to protect vendor from DoS attacks, hacks/intrusions, ransomware, malware, etc.

24. Please give more detail to define the context of the requirements for the

Section I: “Current and Forecasted

Users would like to know the specific weather at levels below a multi-county http://zabbix.com/ https://gta-psg.georgia.gov/psg/information-security-controls-standard-ss-17-001 https://gta-psg.georgia.gov/psg/information-security-controls-standard-ss-17-001 https://gta-psg.georgia.gov/psg/information-security-controls-standard-ss-17-001 https://nvlpubs.nist.gov/nistpubs/SpecialPublications/NIST.SP.800-53r5.pdf https://nvlpubs.nist.gov/nistpubs/SpecialPublications/NIST.SP.800-53r5.pdf method of grouping data from assets and locations for proximity, corridor, and user defined filter as requested under

Weather Information and Alerts” region, specifically as it pertains to their area of operations. An example might be a series of filters or ad hoc queries based on user selections to find weather data in GDOT District 7, and/or in Fulton County, and/or within 1 mile of I-285 and Buford Highway.

25. Can we bring in archive data from the existing Navigator contract service currently deployed by GDOT?

Exhibit I – Scope of Services, Section F.

Assumptions

We can discuss with the vendor awarded the reasons to use archive data and what data would be appropriate to this contract.

Need clarification on if this means Navigator (GDOT’s ATMS) or Navigator (the current platform hosting our data, provided through Vaisala).

If Vaisala Navigator, yes some historical data could be imported.

26. Can GDOT specify exactly what data they want displaying from the surrounding states (Alabama, Florida, South Carolina)?

Exhibit 2 – Business Needs, Section D. Current and Forecasted Weather Visualizations

Weather conditions that impact the roadway such as dry/wet, air temperature, and pavement temperature at minimum.

GDOT needs operational awareness of weather that are approaching Georgia from the surrounding states. This is particularly important on Interstates and major arterials. GDOT on rare occasion has sent emergency crews into surrounding states to assist. GDOT would use the surrounding state data primarily as a reference, as it is not the main focus of operations. GDOT would not want vendors to propose a high cost for surrounding states. GDOT could accept a limited or scaled down basic data package in surrounding states to control cost or more detailed data being listed as optional tiers of data for GDOT to purchase.

27. Does this mean you can set an individual alert on more than 3 individual parameters (e.g. alert me if snow, ice, frost occurs), or that you can set one alert using 3 separate parameters (e.g. alert me if pavement temp is below 33 and the surface state is wet and grip is below 0.7).

Section E. Alerts, #2 Alerts with at least

(3) Parameters

We are looking for alerts that could be triggered by multiple weather conditions and alerts that could be triggered by multiple parameters. Please describe your capabilities your proposal.

28. Can GDOT expand on the requirement here? Are you looking for a data export function? Or for the data to be analyzed within the

SaaS?

Section F. Value Added Capabilities, #1 Mobile Application

Section referenced does not match question.

We want to do data analysis. We want the ability to use in-system functions and the ability to export and/or consume the data via API or other means to utilize internal GDOT to perform reporting/analysis.

GDOT would want exports or feed options in formats that could be edited and viewed easily such as CSV/Excel in addition to PDF. Please describe your capabilities in your proposal.

29. Does GDOT have any examples of specific data they want to receive?

Exhibit 2 - Business Needs, Section F.

Value Added Capabilities, #7 Provide Sums/Averages of Data Values Graphically/Tabularl y

See Exhibit 2, Section D. What are the average temps, rainfall, wind speed, accumulation, lighting strikes, etc. over a period of time and location? Please describe your capabilities in your proposal.

30. Could GDOT expand on the exact requirements here if they are in addition to the provision of API’s?

Value Added Capabilities, #9 Provide additional data to support a transportation response to weather events such as fog, flooding, and wildfires

The Department is making the assumption that this is in reference to #10, and if so, we would like to be able to consume the data internally via the API to leverage in internal GDOT systems.

31. Could GDOT give some examples of what they would define as “features”?

Value Added Capabilities, #16 Enable user identification of features displayed on the map

An example, might be I click on the map, whatever layers are displayed are enabled with pop-ups to provide attributes or descriptive information about what was clicked on. If I click on a weather sensor, it shows me the information from that sensor.

Ideally you could identify the sensors, the weather, the roads, the counties, the GDOT Districts, or any other information displayed or active on the map.

A definition of a geographical feature can be found at:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geographical _feature#:~:text=a%20geographic%20fea ture%20is%20a%20%22representation% 20of%20real,a%20%22feature%20compo sed%20of%20other%20features%22.%20 See%20also

32. Is it possible to get a template or an example of this? That would help us to understand and provide the reference document.

Exhibit 3 Information Technology requirements Section II c) ‘Offeror shall provide a System Security Reference defining the security model utilized for the system, data source and user roles’

See answer to question 21 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geographical_feature#:~:text=a%20geographic%20feature%20is%20a%20%22representation%20of%20real,a%20%22feature%20composed%20of%20other%20features%22.%20See%20also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geographical_feature#:~:text=a%20geographic%20feature%20is%20a%20%22representation%20of%20real,a%20%22feature%20composed%20of%20other%20features%22.%20See%20also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geographical_feature#:~:text=a%20geographic%20feature%20is%20a%20%22representation%20of%20real,a%20%22feature%20composed%20of%20other%20features%22.%20See%20also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geographical_feature#:~:text=a%20geographic%20feature%20is%20a%20%22representation%20of%20real,a%20%22feature%20composed%20of%20other%20features%22.%20See%20also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geographical_feature#:~:text=a%20geographic%20feature%20is%20a%20%22representation%20of%20real,a%20%22feature%20composed%20of%20other%20features%22.%20See%20also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geographical_feature#:~:text=a%20geographic%20feature%20is%20a%20%22representation%20of%20real,a%20%22feature%20composed%20of%20other%20features%22.%20See%20also

33.

Can you provide some example documentation or records? And are

IT services in scope?

Exhibit 3 Information Technology requirements Section II d) Offeror shall provide GDOT with records or documentation to verify and validate IT security scanning, auditing, security provisions, or other security compliance as required by GDOT

IT

Services are defined in the scope. IT application development services are not defined in the scope. An example might be providing GDOT with SOC2 Type 2 audit reports or non-proprietary summary of results of a software vulnerability scan/test. The vendor needs to be able to demonstrate that they have routine preventative processes in place to proactively ensure IT security and that they maintain records that demonstrate to GDOT that such processes are actually being conducted.

II. RFP 484-081121, Section IX, entitled Schedule of RFP Events, is DELETED and REPLACED as follows:

The following Schedule of Events represents the Department’s best estimate of the schedule that will be followed. All times indicated are Eastern Time zone. The Department reserves the right to adjust the schedule as deemed necessary.

III. RFP Section XII., entitled INSTRUCTIONS FOR PREPARING TECHNICAL PROPOSALS, is corrected by DELETING and REPLACING the below paragraph as indicated:

AS READS

To expedite the review of submittals, it is essential that Proposers follow the format and instructions outlined below. The content of all Technical Proposals must be organized, categorized using the same headings (in red), and numbered and lettered exactly as outlined below, and must be responsive to all requested information.

Technical Proposals MUST be limited to a maximum of forty-eight (48) pages, excluding the Cover Page, Administrative Requirements, and Organization Chart. Technical Proposal which exceed the maximum thirty (30) page limit will be disqualified from further consideration.

AS AMENDED TO READ

To expedite the review of submittals, it is essential that Proposers follow the format and instructions outlined below. The content of all Technical Proposals must be organized, categorized using the same headings (in red), and numbered and lettered exactly as outlined below, and must be responsive to all requested information.

Technical Proposals MUST be limited to a maximum of forty-eight (48) pages, excluding the Cover Page, Administrative Requirements, and Organization Chart. Technical Proposal which exceed the maximum forty-eight

(48) page limit will be disqualified from further consideration.

IV. RFP Section XII.F., entitled “Operate and Maintain: Licensing and Maintenance”, is corrected by DELETING and REPLACING the below paragraph as indicated:

AS READS

F. Operate and Maintain: Licensing and Maintenance

1. Describe your approach to monitoring the impact of the deployment on a set of key performance measures and/or targets and reporting on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis.

2. Describe how the Offeror will meet or exceed the support services described in Section J. of the Scope of work.

Request for Proposals Date Time

a. Department issues RFP 7-9-2021

b. Deadline for submission of written questions and requests for clarification

7-23-21 2:00 PM

c. Answers to questions posted 8-6-2021

d. Deadline for RFP responses to be received by GDOT 8-20-2021 2:00 PM

e. Demonstrations To Be Determined

AS AMENDED TO READ

F. Operate and Maintain: Licensing and Maintenance

1. Describe your approach to monitoring the impact of the deployment on a set of key performance measures and/or targets and reporting on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis.

2. Describe how the Offeror will meet or exceed the support services described in Section I. of the Scope of work.