Synopsis-FHWA_2014_EAR_BAA_1-30-14.pdf

FEDERAL HIGHWAY ADMINISTRATION 2014 EXPLORATORY ADVANCED

RESEARCH PROGRAM BROAD AGENCY ANNOUNCEMENT NOTICE

No. DTFH6114R00017

This synopsis is issued in accordance with FAR Part 5.201 in response to the mandatory requirement for a 15 day pre-solicitation notification. The purpose of this synopsis is to announce the Federal Highway Administration’s intent to issue a Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) for the Exploratory Advanced Research Program (EAR).

As a result of this BAA, the FHWA intends to award contracts and/or cooperative agreements.

Offerors shall propose periods of performance based on individual proposed research efforts in accordance with the guidance in the BAA. The BAA is anticipated to be released on or about February 12, 2014 to close April 9, 2014.

The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) is soliciting for proposals under its EAR Program for research projects that could lead to transformational changes and truly revolutionary advances in highway engineering and intermodal surface transportation in the United States. This program supports scientific investigations and studies that advance the current knowledge and state-of-the-art in the sciences and technologies employed in the planning, design, construction, operation, maintenance and management of the nation’s highways. Strategically, this research will enable and expedite the development of revolutionary approaches, methodologies, and breakthroughs required to drive innovation and greatly improve the efficiency of highway transportation.

The FHWA anticipates sponsoring research addressing the following four topics through the issuance of this BAA including the following:

Topic 1: Virtual Nondestructive Evaluation (NDE) Laboratory for Highway Structures A virtual laboratory focused on nondestructive evaluation (NDE) for highway structures would complement the field data collected as part of the Long-Term Bridge Performance Program (LTBP), leverage existing University Transportation Center and commercial NDE funding, accelerate discovery and implementation of new NDE technology, and demonstrate the potential for coordination through virtual resource sharing. FHWA is seeking proposals that cover one, two, or three subareas of this topic as follows: to serve as the secretariat for the virtual laboratory; to provide reference physical specimens and experimental NDE data; or to provide simulation material, structural, and NDE sensor models or model data.

Topic 2: Applications of Massive Data and Data Mining Techniques Relevant to Safety Data The objective of this topic is to adapt suitable methodologies for handling, processing, and analyzing massive data sets. This is undertaken in response to the availability of the Second Strategic Highway Research Program (SHRP2) data. Using new methods such as but not limited to machine learning, text recognition, and probabilistic data linkage have the potential to pull in new and emerging data that can provide new types of contextual information that will help explain why crashes occur and suggest potential new and effective means of preventing crashes and roadway deaths and injuries.

Topic 3A: Behavioral based (or agent based) National Freight Demand Modeling The overall objective of this topic is to demonstrate approaches for a national-level, disaggregated, behavioral-based, and multimodal freight demand modeling tool that are novel and provide a significant enhancement over current methods for evaluating freight policy alternatives and their impacts.

Topic 3B: Freight Data Development and Enhancement to Support National Freight Transportation Analysis, Modeling and Forecasting Practices The objective of this topic is to create innovative and applicable methods and tools to collect, develop and integrate freight related data with special emphasis on geographic, temporal and cost elements enhancements for use at the national level.

The BAA will be released electronically via this Government Point of Entry (GPE) otherwise known as Federal Business Opportunities or www.fbo.gov. As such, no written, telephonic or other type of request for an advance copy of the announcement will be entertained at this time.

Potential offerors/vendors are encouraged to register on www.fbo.gov to receive any further information in reference to the subject action inclusive of any announcements, and/or amendments to the solicitation after its release.

Any questions regarding this synopsis should be directed to the Contracting Officer, Robin Hobbs email at Robin.Hobbs@dot.gov.

http://www.fbo.gov/ http://www.fbo.gov/ mailto:Robin.Hobbs@dot.gov