NTD_RFP_DTFT6017R00001.pdf

National Transit Database (NTD) - Validation Services RFP Number DTFT6017R00001

SECTION B: SUPPLIES OR SERVICES AND PRICES

B.1 Supplies or Services

The United States (US) Department of Transportation (DOT), Federal Transit Administration (FTA) anticipates awarding a single Small Business Set-Aside, Firm-Fixed Price (FFP) and Labor-Hour hybrid contract. This requirement is a total small business set-aside. The Period of Performance (POP) will be a five year term, one base year period of 12 months and four (4) one (1) year option periods.

The FTA has an existing validation services requirement program. This acquisition seeks to find a firm to continue validation services support in accordance with the Statement of Objectives (SOO) in section C of this Request for Proposal (RFP). The total estimated value for this overall program requirement is no more than $19.9 million across a total of five years concerning performance.

B.2 North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) Code and Small Business Standard

The North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) Code for this acquisition is 541611, Administrative Management and General Management Consulting Services. The small business size standard is $15 Million.

B.3 Contract Line Item Number (CLIN)/Objective Structure

Base Year

CLIN/Objective 0001 - Help Desk and Technical Assistance CLIN/Objective 0002 - Annual Module Validation CLIN/Objective 0003 - Monthly Module Validation and Data Products CLIN/Objective 0004 - Safety Module Validation and Data Products CLIN/Objective 0005 - Apportionment and Annul Data Products CLIN/Objective 0006 –Annual Review CLIN/Objective 0007 – Reporting Manuals, Training Materials and Website Content CLIN/Objective 0008 – Program Performance Metrics Reporting CLIN/Objective 0009 – Travel CLIN/Objective 0010 – Special Projects CLIN/Objective 0011 – Training Provision CLIN/Objective 0012 – User Acceptance Testing and System Requirements Documentation CLIN/Objective 0013 – Transition Support

*NOTE: For each respective year after the base year, the CLIN number will change respectively yet main the same title etc. For example, in the option year, CLIN 0001 will become CLIN 0101.

B.4 Contract Period of Performance The contract period of performance is from date of award through a five year period including a one (1) year base and four (4) one-year option periods. The Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) clause 52.217-8 “Option to Extend Services” NOV 1999, shall be incorporated into the resulting contracts, as referenced in Section I, in the event the Government requires continued performance of any services with the limits and at the rates specified in the contract beyond the four year period of performance term.

B.5 Pricing/Labor Rates Table TBD more at contract award Estimations for Base Year below

Firm Fixed Price (FFP) CLINs Base Year

Option Year 1

Option Year 2

Option Year 3

Option Year 4

Objective Description CLIN Items Reimbursement Type

Not To Exceed Amount

Not To Exceed Amount

Not To Exceed Amount

Not To Exceed Amount

Not To Exceed Amount

Help Desk & Technical Assistance

0001, 0101, 0201, 0201,0401 Firm Fixed Price

Annual Module Validation 0002, 0102, 0202, 0302, 0402 Firm Fixed Price

Monthly Module Validation and Data Products

0003, 0103, 0203, 0303, 0403 Firm Fixed Price

Safety Module Validation and Data Products

0004, 0104, 0204, 0304, 0404 Firm Fixed Price

Apportionment Files & Annual Data Products

0005, 0105, 0205, 0305, 0405 Firm Fixed Price

Annual Review 0006, 0106, 0206, 0306, 0406 Firm Fixed Price

Reporting Manuals, Training Materials and Website Content

0003, 0103, 0203, 0303, 0403 Firm Fixed Price

Program Performance Metrics Reporting

0007, 0107, 0208, 0308, 0408 Firm Fixed Price

Travel* (See details) 0009, 0109, 0209, 0309, 0409 Cost Reimbursable $39,000 $39,585 $40,179 $40,781 $41,393

Transition 0013, 0413 Firm Fixed Price

Labor Hour CLINS Base Year

Option Year 1

Option Year 2

Option Year 3

Option Year 4

Objective Description CLIN Items Reimbursement Type

Total Cost Not To Exceed

Total Cost Not To Exceed

Total Cost Not To Exceed

Total Cost Not To Exceed

Total Cost Not To Exceed

Special Projects 0010, 0110, 0210, 0310, 0410

Labor Hours (detail in table below)

Training Provision 0011, 0111, 0211, 0311, 0411

Labor Hours (detail in table below)

User Acceptance Testing and System Requirements Documentation

0012, 0112, 0212, 0312, 0412 Labor Hours (detail in table below)

Total Contract Cost

Base Year

Option Year 1

Option Year 2

Option Year 3

Option Year 4

*NOTE: The labor categories in the Pricing Template (Attachment J-1) shall be used for the total life of this contract. If the labor categories for this requirement change but within scope of the contract, a modification must be executed to clearly reflect this to ensure clarity concerning the labor categories authorized for use. This contract will be awarded to the contractor based within the pre-established labor rates as stated using the CLIN structure in the Pricing Template (Attachment J-1).

(END OF SECTION B)

SECTION C: DESCRIPTION/SPECIFICATION/STATEMENT OF

OBJECTIVES

BACKGROUND

The National Transit Database (NTD) is a program of the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) in the United States (U.S.) Department of Transportation (DOT). It is the primary source of statistics on the transit industry in the U.S. The NTD collects detailed financial, operational, and capital asset data each year from over 600 transit providers in urbanized areas across the Nation, including Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. Another 300 transit agencies in urban areas provide summary reports of their financial, operational, and capital asset data under the NTD’s Small Systems Waiver (SSW) program, for a total of approximately 900 reporting urban transit systems. Additionally, each month the approximately 600 full-report transit providers also report data on ridership, service operations, and safety events to the NTD. In a separate report, State, Territorial, and Tribal Departments of Transportation report summary data on behalf of over 1,600 transit providers (sub-recipients) in rural areas. It is anticipated that this number will increase to approximately 2,500 sub-recipients by 2018. Under 49 USC 5335, which establishes the National Transit Database, all recipients of FTA Formula Grants under 49 USC 5307 (Urbanized Area Formula Grants) and under 49 USC 5311 (Formula Grants for Other Than Urbanized Areas) must report to the NTD. In 2018, recipients of 49 USC 5310 (Formula Grants for the Enhanced Mobility of Seniors and Individuals with Disabilities) funds will also be required to report a basic asset inventory to the NTD on behalf of approximately 800 subrecipients. Although most subrecipients will be reported by existing State DOT reporters to the NTD, as many as 150 designated recipients in large urban areas may also begin reporting to the NTD on behalf of Section 5310 subrecipients. A number of transit providers in urbanized areas also report voluntarily to the NTD in order to benefit their local urbanized area in the apportionment of Urbanized Area Formula Grants.

This database serves many needs. As set forth in 49 USC 5335, the NTD was established by Congress “to help meet the needs of…. the public for information on which to base public transportation service planning.” To accomplish this purpose, the statute directed the establishment of a Uniform System of Accounts (USOA) - uniform categories for financial and operating information reporting to the NTD by the transit industry. This allows local and State governments to make operating and capital cost comparisons across transit providers, and across transit options, such as a comparison of the operating costs and capital costs associated with a light rail system vs. a bus system.

In addition, NTD data underpins FTA’s annual apportionment of about $8 billion in formula funding for urbanized areas. These include the Urbanized Area Formula Program (Section 5307), including the Small Transit Intensive Cities apportionment and the small bus system operating assistance caps; the Rural Area Formula Program (Section 5311), including the Tribal Transit apportionment; the Bus and Bus Facilities Program formula apportionment; the State Safety Oversight Program Apportionment; and the State of Good Repair Program formula apportionment . For this reason, the NTD Program also requires that data reported to the NTD be audited and certified by the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the reporting transit provider, as inaccurate data included in the NTD affects not only the funding of the reporting transit provider’s urbanized area, but of every other urbanized area as well.

Furthermore, NTD data are also essential in meeting FTA’s statutory obligation to report to Congress every two years on the condition and performance of the Nation’s transit systems. In addition to providing current and retrospective information for the Conditions and Performance Report (C&P Report) that fulfills this obligation, data reported to the NTD also underpins FTA’s Transit Economic Requirements Model (TERM), which is used to estimate the Nation’s transit capital investment needs over a twenty year period for the C&P Report. In 2017, the NTD has also been expanded to begin collecting state of good repair performance targets established by FTA’s grantees in accordance with its National Transit Asset Management System regulation.

Finally, NTD data also provides an essential source of data to FTA in meeting various statutory requirements, such as the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 and the Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA). NTD data used in FTA’s performance measures include, among others, total transit ridership, the number of counties with rural transit service, and transit-related fatalities and injuries.

Reporting Modules:

The NTD collects and processes many types of transit data in three reporting modules. The detailed specifications of each module can be found in the Reporting Manuals on the NTD website at www.transit.dot.gov/ntd. Following is a summary of those requirements:

1. NTD Annual Module The original NTD reporting module is for the annual reporting of data on revenues, expenditures, assets, service operations, resource consumption, and state of good repair performance targets by approximately 900 transit providers in urbanized areas (areas of over 50,000 persons) in the United States, including Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands, 130 tribes, and 54 State and Territorial DOTs on behalf of approximately 1,600 small transit providers in non-urbanized, or rural, areas.

The data in this module is reported on the basis of each transit provider’s fiscal year. Reports are due four months after the completion of each transit systems fiscal year, which is summarized by the following table:

For Fiscal Years Ending: NTD Report Due Date Reporting Number of

Transit Providers (2014 Report Year)

June 30 October 31 453 September 30 January 31 121 December 31 April 30 251

Much of the data in the NTD is reported by mode, such as bus, heavy rail (subway), light rail, commuter rail, vanpool, and demand response. Additional, modal data is also reported separately on the basis of type of service, namely whether it is directly-operated by the transit system’s employee or if it is operated under a purchased transportation contract with a third-party provider.

https://www.transit.dot.gov/ntd

The full annual report consists of the following forms:

1. The Agency Identification (B-10) Form

2. One or More B-30 Forms for each contractor operating transit service, if needed

3. The F-10 Form showing the different sources of revenues for the fiscal year, and whether those funds were used for operating expenses or for capital expenses.

4. The F-20 Form showing capital expenditures by object class (e.g. vehicles, stations, etc.)

for each modal report.

5. For each mode of operation, an F-30 Form showing how operating expenses were spent by function (e.g. vehicle operations vs. maintenance vs. general administration) and by object class (e.g. salaries and wages, fringe benefits, fuel, etc.)

6. The F-40 Form showing reconciling operating expenses (e.g. interest payments, rentals and leases) not allocated to any one mode.

7. For independent transit agencies, the F-60 Form financial assets and liabilities

8. For each mode of operation, an A-10 Form showing a count of the total transit stations and total maintenance facilities. FTA is currently in the process of revising this form for the 2014 Report Year, which will convert this form into a facility inventory. Reports will be submitted on the size and year of construction or rebuild for each facility into the inventory, with updates made to the inventory each year.

9. For each mode of operation, an A-20 Form showing the total mileage of fixed-guideway segments for the mode. FTA is currently in the process of revising this form for the 2014 Report Year to consolidate it with the S-20 Form.

10. For each mode of operation, an A-30 Form providing an inventory of all revenue vehicles, with detailed characteristics for each fleet group of vehicles. The A-30 is pre-loaded each year, with updates made to the inventory each year by the reporters.

11. For each mode of operation, an S-10 Form for reporting key service operations statistics (e.g. vehicle miles, vehicle hours, passenger trips, and passenger miles) as an annual total, as well as by average weekday, average Saturday, and average Sunday. Large rail systems also report service data by peak and off-peak service. The passenger miles collected on this form are one of the most difficult data elements for reporting, transit systems must typically develop a sampling plan to collect and report these data. Sampling procedures are governed by The Sampling Manual.

12. For each mode of operation not operated by a contractor, an R-10 Form showing employee head count and total hours worked under each of five different categories.

13. For each mode of operation, an R-20 Form showing a count of the number of vehicle failures for that mode over the year.

14. The R-30 Form, showing the amount of fuel consumed by each mode of operations.

15. For each mode of operation, the FFA-10 Form, showing how the service was split among each of the urbanized areas served by the transit system.

16. The D-10 Form certifying the data.

17. The A-90 Form reporting the targets and performance against the performance metrics required by the Transit Asset Management program.

18. The P-10, P-20, P-30 and P-40 forms that capture profile information including reporter modes, reporter uses and reportable segments.

19. Beginning in report year 2017, approximately 5 additional asset inventory forms will be added to the NTD:

a. A form collecting a line-by-line inventory of maintenance and administrative facilities.

b. A form collecting a line-by-line inventory of passenger stations and parking facilities.

c. A form collecting information on track infrastructure.

d. A form collecting information on guideway and power infrastructure.

e. A form collecting a line-by-line inventory of service vehicles.

Systems receiving a small systems waiver fill out the B-10, B-30, A-10, A-30, FFA-10, D-10 and the profile (P10, P-20, P-30 and P-40) Forms. In addition, these systems fill out a special W-30 Form that collects the sources of funds received for operating and capital expenses, annual total service data (vehicle miles, vehicle hours, unlinked passenger trips), and summary safety data (total fatalities, injuries, and incidents).

States and Territories reporting on behalf of subrecipients have similar reporting requirements to those receiving small systems waivers. Reports consists of a single form for each subrecipient containing contact information, sources of funds for operating and capital expenditures, a summary revenue vehicle inventory, summary safety statistics, and an annual total of service data (vehicle miles, vehicle hours, and passenger trips.) FTA expects an additional 700-900 recipients of 49 U.S. 5310 funds will be required to begin reporting a basic asset inventory to the NTD in FY18. These agencies will report as State sub-recipients but will only be required to report contact and asset inventory information. They will not be subject to other Rural NTD reporting requirements.

A summary of the basic reporter types is outlined in the table below:

Reporter Type Approximate Number of Reporters

Full Urban Reporters 560 Urban Reporters with reduced reporting requirements

Tribal Reporters 135 State Reporters 54

The validation cycle for the annual reporting module is completed in August of each year, with data products from this module delivered in September. The Annual Module usually requires extensive validation in which the submitted report is returned to the transit provider with questions requiring either a data revision or an explanation. As these explanations are not always sufficient, and as changing one data element may impact other data elements elsewhere in the report, a single report may go through multiple revisions before being accepted.

2. NTD Monthly Module The second NTD module is for the monthly reporting of ridership and service operations by the urbanized area transit providers (except those receiving a Small Systems Waiver).

Approximately 600 agencies currently report monthly data to the NTD. The Monthly NTD Module collects unlinked passenger trips, vehicle revenue miles, vehicle revenue hours, and vehicles operated in maximum service each month. While all of the data elements in this module are also reported in the Annual Module, the Monthly Module serves two important needs. First, it provides operational data on a timelier basis than the Annual Module, as it is not reliant upon the completion of each transit provider’s fiscal year. Second, because data are reported monthly, it is able to produce an annual transit operations data set on a calendar year basis. Transit providers receiving a Small Systems Waiver for one year are not required to report the Monthly Module for the following calendar year.

3. NTD Safety Module The third NTD module is for the monthly reporting of transit safety data by the urbanized area transit providers (except those receiving a Small Systems Waiver). Approximately 600 agencies current report safety event data the NTD on a monthly basis. This module also collects an annual report of the number of transit security personnel.

In general, transit providers in urbanized areas are required to submit a detailed report to the Safety NTD Module for each major incident, which includes all incidents involving one or more fatalities, one or more injuries requiring immediate transportation away from the scene for medical treatment, more than $25,000 in property damage, or an immediate evacuation for life-safety reasons. FTA anticipates that future safety rule makings will impact the current reporting thresholds in report year 2017. These changes will likely increase the number of reportable events.

Transit providers in urbanized areas are also required to provide a monthly summary report of minor incidents, such as slips and falls. Transit providers receiving a Small Systems Waiver for one year are not required to report the Safety Module for the following calendar year.

Currently, the NTD receives approximately 15,500 monthly non-major event summary reports from transit providers over the course of a year. The majority of these monthly reports state that no qualifying events occurred, but approximately 2,500 of these contain data for non-major events and account for approximately 14,500 annual non-major events.

In addition to these non-major event summary reports, the NTD receives over 8,000 major event reports per year from transit providers. The change in event thresholds for 2017 will likely increase this amount by approximately 10%.

Data Products:

As noted earlier, NTD has a wide variety of uses, including transit planning, the Conditions & Performance Report, and various special analyses. There are also a number of standardized NTD data products that have been developed over time for both internal FTA use and for public users.

Examples of these data products from previous years can be found on the NTD Website, www.transit.dot.gov/ntd.

1. Apportionment Data Sets These are Excel format files that present data specifically for calculation of the formula apportionment.

Their format is established by FTA. Copies of the current formats are available online, and the existing routines will be provided to the winning contractor.

2. Annual Data Tables and Database Files These products are Excel format files that make the full set of data from the Annual Module available to the public. The Data Tables provide data with user-friendly formatting. The Database files provide data in a raw format for analysis by data analysis programs like Access, SAS, or SPSS.

3. Historical Time Series Files These are Excel format files that provide selected NTD data items in a time series format. These files are specially formatted so that each data element appears on a separate tab, with years in columns, and each transit agency or each transit agency-mode appears in the exact same line of each tab.

4. National Transit Summaries and Trends This is a PDF format report summarizing the results of the NTD Annual Reports.

5. Transit Profiles The Transit Profile is a one-page summary of the data submitted to the Annual NTD Module by each of the urbanized area transit providers. A sample Transit Profile is included in Section J. A full set of Transit Profiles from previous years can be found on the NTD Website, www.transit.dot.gov/ntd.

6. Monthly Database Each month, FTA updates the Monthly Database files on the NTD Website to reflect data from the most-recently reported month, as well as to reflect any changes or updates to previous months’ data. The Monthly Database is comprised of two files, one containing the actual raw data from the NTD Monthly Module, and the other containing data that is adjusted in prior years to account for major data anomalies, and so as to provide a smooth time series with the current month’s data.

7. Monthly Ridership Report These are a collection of graphs, as well as a summary data file of the latest data from the Top 150 transit providers, used in FTA’s internal performance reporting.

8. Safety & Security Reports These data sets summarize the results of the Safety & Security Module each month. One file summarizes injuries and fatalities, another summarizes all collisions, and the other summarizes all major incidents.

8. Rural Data Tables Similar to the Annual Data Tables and Database files, these files provide the complete set of Rural NTD data to the public.

ANTICIPATED BASE PERIOD: November 1, 2017 – October 31, 2018

CLIN/OBJECTIVE 0001: HELP DESK AND TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE FOR 11/2017 –

10/2018

FTA requires a contractor to provide technical assistance and help desk services to transit systems reporting to the NTD. All help desk communication must be recorded using the FTA provided tracking and change management tool.

Technical assistance has the objective of ensuring that from the hours of 8am to 7pm EST on weekdays (excluding Federal holidays); personnel from transit systems reporting to the NTD can do the following:

• Reach a live NTD analyst by phone to discuss technical questions on the proper way to complete NTD reporting forms and how to interpret guidance in the NTD Reporting Manual

• Receive a response to an e-mail inquiry on the proper way to complete NTD reporting forms or interpreting guidance in the NTD Reporting Manual within 24 hours

• Receive guidance on how to access NTD data products, and identify the most-appropriate data product for meeting their data needs (these requests may also originate from members of the general public)

• Report errors or bugs experienced in the online reporting system FTA does not currently have a customer satisfaction survey in place for the NTD program, but is planning on implementing one during the course of this contract in order to collect baseline data for the NTD program.

Offerors should assume responsibility for assigning a priority to reported errors or bugs in the online reporting system and participation in a weekly meeting with FTA and the IT team supporting the NTD reporting tool. All reported bugs must be recorded using the FTA change management tool.

To support annual outreach and technical support efforts for NTD reporters, the Government may request that the Contractor send up to 2 analysts to support 10 National Transit Database classroom trainings conducted by the National Transit Institute each year. Analysts would not be responsible for training provision but would be available to provide additional technical assistance to reporters attending the training. Each training is 2 days long and training locations vary each reporting year. Travel to these events is included in CLIN 0107.

Additionally, offerors should include in their work plan for this objective the processing of accounts for transit systems that are new to NTD reporting or submitting requests for initial Automatic Passenger Counter (APC) certification. In the past, FTA has added around 1-2 dozen new transit systems to the NTD each year and processed approximately 20 requests for new APC certification. Processing these applications involves reviewing the application for demonstrated eligibility for NTD reporting. In most cases, the approval process will require requesting additional information from the applicant on the exact nature of the service provided and relationships with other parties in providing the service to determine the actual “operator” of the service. For APC certification requests additional information may be requested to ensure agencies meet eligibility criteria for using APCs for NTD reporting. Each application for an NTD ID for a new transit system typically involves several rounds of e-mail or phone contact to gain enough information to resolve these questions. APC certifications may require the same.

The contractor shall provide a weekly status report to FTA of the date new ID applications and APC certification requests that were received and their status.

CLIN/OBJECTIVE 0002: ANNUAL MODULE VALIDATION – 2017 REPORT YEAR

FTA requires a contractor to validate the annual reports submitted by transit systems for the 2017 Report Year. The report validation process must ensure that data reported to the NTD is complete, reasonable and in compliance with published reporting requirements.

Offerors should review the existing Policy and Validation Manuals to understand the current reporting requirements and validation procedures. The current NTD reporting system has approximately 1000 automated validation checks built into the reporting system. The FTA anticipates that additional 200-300 checks will be added for report year 2017. In many cases reporters are able to address automated validation issues through in system data corrections without analyst intervention. In other cases, an analyst must review a reporter’s response and provide final approval of the reported data.

FTA seeks innovative approaches from offerors to improve the validation process and to increase the accuracy of the reported data. Many of the current validation procedures are checks for data consistency from the previous year. In many cases, these checks do not identify data that is consistently wrong. Offerors may provide detailed proposals for how these innovative approaches to validation will be developed over the lifetime of this contract, and demonstrate how they are incorporated into the work plan. Offerors should assume maintenance of validation manuals and documentation as well as annual review of automated checks to identify adjustments, changes or additions needed to the automated validation checks.

The validation of annual reports also requires the preparation of correspondence related to each NTD report for FTA’s signature. Each NTD reporter receives a closeout letter from FTA, indicating whether the report was accepted, and including, as needed, one or more outstanding reporting issues that must be resolved next year and one or more reporting notes or reminders on points of emphasis for validation for next year. Other correspondence to be processed includes the approval or denial of new NTD IDs, extensions requests, passenger mile sampling waivers, other data waivers, full reporting waivers, natural disaster adjustments, or strike adjustments.

Formal warning letters for late submission of reports or for failure to make a timely response to validation questions are also routed through the system. The NTD Online Reporting System currently has templates that automatically generate letter templates for each of these purposes.

These templates must then be manually-edited for the specifics of each situation, and then the Online Reporting System allows them to be routed to FTA for signature and approval.

A critical output of the validation process is the close-out letter. For FTA grantees that are required to report to the NTD, the close-out letter acts as their “receipt” to document compliance with the reporting requirements. For data questions that were not able to be resolved during the validation process, the close-out letter provides official documentation of what deficiencies must be corrected for the next report year. The close-out letter also contains official program announcements and reporting reminders. FTA reviews each close-out letter for grammatical correctness and use of plain language. Additionally, FTA reviews any outstanding data issues and reporting reminders noted in the close-out letter to verify that these issues and reminders accurately reflect the data in the NTD report, and that these issues could not, in fact, have been reasonably corrected by the reporter through a re-submission of their report. Finally, FTA conducts ad hoc reviews of the data in the report to ensure that any significant data issues or questions were not overlooked in the validation process.

Below is an outline of the current reporting and closeout deadlines for the NTD reporting cycle.

Offerors should consider these timelines in their final proposal.

Fiscal Year Report Due Final Closeout Date

# of Reporters

July to June October 31st March 15th 55%

October to September

January 30th May 15th 15%

January to December

April 30th July 15th 30%

CLIN/OBJECTIVE 0003: MONTHLY MODULE VALIDATION AND DATA

PRODUCTS FOR 11/2017-10/2018

FTA requires a contractor to validate the monthly module reports submitted by transit systems during the November 2017 to October 2018 time period. Reports to the Monthly Module are due by the last day of the following month. For example, data for September 2017 must be submitted to the NTD by October 31, 2017. These submissions are then validated by the contractor during November 2017. Validation for these reports continues through the closeout of the annual report for that transit system. The Monthly Module must reasonably match reports to the annual Urban Module for the same data. For example, for a transit system with a July to June fiscal year, data for September 2017 will be included in the Fiscal Year 2018 Annual Report to the Urban Module, which will be due by October 31, 2018. Validation of the Monthly Module report for September 2017 may,in theory, continue through the conclusion of validation for the 2018 Report Year in August 2019.

Offerors should review the existing Validation Manual, point-by-point procedures, and the code dump of the current automated validation checks to understand the current validation procedures.

FTA seeks innovative approaches from offerors to improve the validation process to increase the accuracy of the reported data. Additionally, offerors should include in their work plan how they will maximize the number of reports submitted on-time.

The contractor shall submit a monthly report of validation activities for the Monthly Module, including a narrative summary of major data issues flagged for revision by reporting transit agencies.

By the fourth business day of each month, the contractor shall provide a report from the Monthly Ridership Database files and post these on the website. The contractor shall also provide standard monthly ridership reports to FTA. Samples of the reports are included in Section J. A copy of the routines used to generate the report, including those to calculate estimates for missing data, will be provided to the winning bidder. The Top 150 Transit Systems are updated annually, so two such monthly reports must be provided in September each year, one updating the July fiscal year that ended in June (and which was first reported in August, prior to the completion of validation), and one for the new fiscal year that began in July (and which has not yet been through the validation process). The Government may request adjustments to the content and format of monthly reports throughout the course of this contract.

CLIN/OBJECTIVE 0004: SAFETY MODULE VALIDATION AND DATA PRODUCTS

FOR 11/2017-10/2018

FTA requires a contractor to validate the Safety Module reports submitted by transit systems during the November 2017 to October 2018 time period. Reports to the Safety Module are due by the last day of the following months. For example, data for September 2017 must be submitted to the NTD by October 31, 2017. These submissions are then validated by the contractor during November 2017.

Offerors should review the existing Validation Manual and point-by-point procedures to understand the current validation procedures. FTA seeks innovative approaches from offerors to improve the validation process to increase the accuracy of the reported data. Additionally, offerors should include in their work plan how they will maximize the number of reports submitted on-time.

The contractor shall submit a monthly report of validation activities for the Safety Module, including a narrative summary of major data issues flagged for revision by reporting transit agencies.

By the fourth business day of the month, the contractor shall also provide monthly summary reports of the most-recent data from the Safety Module. Additionally, FTA requires a contractor to monthly query the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) database http://safetydata.fra.dot.gov to pull relevant safety data for transit rail systems that report to FRA rather than the NTD, and to combine this data into a unified transit safety dataset for publication.

Samples of the existing safety data sets, which do not currently include FRA data, are included in Section J. The routines currently used to produce these datasets will be provided. The Government may request adjustments to the content and format of monthly safety reports throughout the course of this contract.

CLIN/OBJECTIVE 0005: REPORT YEAR 2017 APPORTIONMENT FILES AND

ANNUAL DATA PRODUCTS

FTA requires a contractor to produce data sets for the annual apportionment of federal funds, and an annual documentation of the apportionment data.

Urbanized Area Formula (Section 5307) Data Set: This file consists of data for urbanized areas over 200,000 in population, plus other statutorily specified areas. Data is presented by transit system and mode, with subtotals for all fixed-guideway service and all non-fixed guideway service. The data set is adjusted to offset lost days of operation due to strikes, for agencies receiving approval for a strike adjustment. For systems receiving a natural disaster adjustment or reporting waiver, data from a prior year is substituted for the current year’s data in this file. For systems for which conditional data waivers were granted, the questionable data must be withheld from the apportionment. A sample of this dataset is included in Section J. In order to be processed by FTA’s systems, the format of the sample dataset must be followed exactly, with any deviations in format approved in writing by FTA.

Formula Grants for Other than Urbanized Areas (5311) Data Set: This file consists of data for the apportionment of formula funds to States for the provision of service in areas with populations less than 50,000. Data includes vehicle revenue miles and is presented by transit system and mode and rolled up to the state level. The 5311 program also includes a set aside for the Tribal Transportation Program so a separate data set for Tribal apportionment information is also presented in this deliverable. Sample datasets will be provided via the Government’s website at a later date.

http://safetydata.fra.dot.gov/

Small Transit Intensive Cities Data Set: This file consists of data for all urbanized areas, presented at the urbanized area level. Data includes population, population density, vehicle revenue miles (VRM), vehicle revenue hours (VRH), unlinked passenger trips (UPT), and passenger miles (PMT.) Summary totals are included for all UZAs between 200,000 and 1 million in population. From these data, the following factors are calculated. VRM per Capita, VRH per Capita, UPT per Capita, PMT per Capita, PMT/VRM, and PMT/VRH. For each of these six factors, the average for each urbanized area under 200,000 in population is compared to the average for all urbanized areas between 200,000 and 1 million in population. The same adjustments for the UAF Data Set must all be made. Sample datasets will be provided via the Government’s website at a later date.

100 Bus Rule Data Set: This file consists of data to inform eligibility under the special rule relating to operating costs for “100 bus providers”. Data is presented by agency, mode and type of service. It includes data on vehicles operated in maximum service (VOMS), fixed route bus VOMS, demand response VOMS, mode vehicle revenue hours (VRH) and total VRH for the urbanized area. Sample datasets will be provided via the Government’s website at a later date.

State of Good Repair Formula (Section 5337) Data Set: This file consists of data for fixed-guideway service from all urbanized areas over 200,000 in population, plus other statutorily specified areas. Data is presented by transit agency and mode for both High Intensity Fixed Guideway and High Intensity Motorbus. This data set includes directional route miles (DRM) over 7 years in age, and vehicle revenue miles (VRM) on fixed guideway over 7 years in age.

The same adjustments for the UAF Data Set must all be made. Sample datasets will be provided via the Government’s website at a later date.

State Safety Oversight (SSO) Formula Data Set (Section 5329 (e)): This file consists of data for each rail transit agency organized by State Oversight Agency. Data includes mode, type of service, vehicle revenue miles (VRM), directional route miles (DRM) and passenger miles travelled (PMT). Sample datasets will be provided via the Government’s website at a later date

Apportionment Documentation: FTA requires an annual summary of the year’s validation efforts, and their impacts on the data included in the apportionment data files. The summary should include the following information:

• a summary of new reporters, and their relationships (if any) with current or previous NTD reporters

• a summary of discontinued reporters, and their relationships (if any) with current or previous NTD reporters

• a summary of waivers that were granted, and whether each waiver had any impacts on the data in the apportionment data sets

• a summary of the data adjustments made to the apportionment data sets, and the reasons for doing so

• a summary of questionable data accepted into the NTD and included in the apportionment data sets, including the reason for questioning the data and the reason for ultimately accepting the data

Sample datasets will be provided via the Government’s website at a later date. FTA is very interested in innovative approaches to the apportionment documentation to produce a clear, simple, and useful summary for use by FTA staff in conducting final acceptance of the data sets, by FTA senior officials in reviewing the apportionment, and by FTA stakeholders in the general public interested in understanding the apportionment. Offerors should not feel bound by the format of the previous years’ documentation, and should focus on a format that meets the above objectives.

Offerors should include in their work plan delivery of draft apportionment files to FTA, two weeks for FTA review, and delivery of the final apportionment files to FTA by September 1.

In addition to the apportionment files, FTA also requires a contractor to produce annual data products and post the products to the NTD website using the Drupal website management platform for the 2017 report year. This task makes the data from the NTD available to the general public. A number of data products are needed for each report year:

• Annual Database Files and Data Tables – The format of these products was updated for report year 2015. FTA will provide copies of the final data tables, and the queries used to produce them, to the winning offeror. The end set of products is a comprehensive presentation of data from the Urban and Rural Modules, similar in overall size to the current Database Files and Data Tables.

• Transit Profiles – These are one-page summaries of the data collected from each transit system. A sample of the transit profiles is included in Section J, and a copy of the routines used to produce them using MySQL will be provided to the winning offeror.

• National Transit Summaries and Trends – This is a narrative summary of the data from each Report Year, and the trends in data from the last 10 report years. A sample of the NTST is included in Section J. Offerors are encouraged to submit innovative approaches for improving the NTST as a tool for communicating NTD data to general audiences, and should not feel bound by the current format and presentation.

Offerors should include in their work plan delivery of draft data products to FTA, four weeks for FTA review, and delivery of the final data products to FTA by September 30.

CLIN/OBJECTIVE 0006: REPORT YEAR 2017 ANNUAL REVIEW

FTA requires a contractor to convene an annual meeting between the contractor’s personnel and FTA staff to review NTD operations for the previous year. The review shall include the validation processes for each of the NTD modules, and how to improve data quality and accuracy. The review shall also include production of the NTD data products, and any other accomplishments from the previous year. The review shall also include recommendations for any improvements or enhancements to the NTD program to improve customer satisfaction from NTD reporters and NTD data users. Meeting must be held by September 30th. Following the meeting, the contractor shall submit a draft report to FTA for FTA to review for two weeks, and then a final report based on FTA comments by October 31st.

CLIN/OBJECTIVE 0007: REPORTING MANUALS, TRAINING MATERIALS AND

WEBSITE CONTENT – 2017 REPORT YEAR

FTA requires annual revisions of the NTD annual and monthly policy reporting manuals, training materials and website content to conform with changes to statutory requirements and/or program policy. NTD currently provides a single policy manual for both urban and rural reporters along with a monthly reporting manual for ridership and service reporting and a manual for monthly safety reporting. FTA is currently working on creating a separate annual reporting manual for rural and reduced reporters. Offerors should review the existing manuals and assume the addition of a stand-alone manual for rural and reduced reporters for 2018. Samples of the existing annual and monthly policy reporting manuals are included in Section J.

The contractor shall provide the final Annual Urban Reporting, Annual Rural/Reduce Reporter Reporting and Annual Monthly Ridership and Service Reporting manuals by June 15th . Periodic updates to the NTD glossary may also be requested by the Government. Offerors should include 2 weeks of review by FTA in their delivery schedule for these three deliverables. The final Annual Safety Reporting Manual shall be provided by December 1st. Offerors should include 2 weeks of review by FTA in their delivery schedule. Please reference the table below for a sample timeline for the 2019 Reporting Manuals delivery schedule:

Manual Final Delivery Date 2019 Annual Urban Reporting Manual

June 15, 2018

2019 Annual Rural/Reduced Reporter Reporting Manual

June 15, 2018

2019 Annual Monthly Ridership and Service Reporting Manual

June 15, 2018

2019 Annual Safety Reporting Manual

December 1, 2018

FTA requires the creation of or updates to presentation and training materials for webinars or in-person presentations at transit industry events or conferences. FTA currently holds 2 webinars each year on monthly safety reporting and two webinars on annual rural/reduced reporting requirements. Offerors should assume revisions to these trainings along with the creation of 2-3 additional 30-60 minute training presentations each year.

The NTD website is created on a Drupal platform. All NTD web content is updated and managed through the Drupal interface. FTA requires periodic updates to the website content including, but not limited to, the annual upload of all publicly available data products (as discussed in Objective 0003-0005), reporting manuals, policy documents and training materials.

Offerors should not feel bound by the previous format of the manuals and training materials.

While content must stay consistent, FTA seeks continual improvement to the presentation of its reporting guidance and informational materials to the public.

CLIN/OBJECTIVE 0008: PROGRAM PERFORMANCE METRICS REPORTING –

2017 REPORT YEAR

FTA requires a contractor to provide regular reporting on the status of the National Transit Database program and progress towards performance objectives. Offerors should include in their work plan delivery of weekly reports by COB Tuesday of the following week on program status and monthly reports within 7 business days after the close of the month on performance against contract objectives. Sample datasets will be provided via the Government’s website at a later date. Offerors should not feel bound to the content and format of the sample reports provided.

CLIN/OBJECTIVE 0009: TRAVEL – 2017 REPORT YEAR

The National Transit Institute hosts 10 NTD Classroom training sessions per year. The contractor is invited to participate in the NTD Classroom Training sessions as an opportunity to meet the NTD reporters, assist with training provision and to provide one-on-one technical assistance.

Offerors shall include a Not-to-Exceed amount to cover travel to the 10 NTD Classroom training sessions located throughout the continental United States, approximately 15 on-site meetings at FTA Headquarters in Washington, DC and travel to approximately 5-10 other sites across the continental United States for technical assistance or to conduct trainings for reporters at industry events and conferences, as approved in writing by the COR.

CLIN/OBJECTIVE 0010: SPECIAL PROJECTS – 2017 REPORT YEAR

Offerors shall propose a Not-to-Exceed amount to cover a limited number of special data analyses, to be conducted by task order, along with proposed labor pricing for this CLIN. FTA will propose the project, the contractor shall provide a proposed work breakdown structure, and FTA shall approve a not-to-exceed amount for the task. These data analyses may consist of developing revisions to the standard data products, or conducting special one-off data queries or other analyses of NTD data.

CLIN/OBJECTIVE 0011: TRAINING PROVISION

FTA requires a contractor to provide up to 10 webinars and 5-10 offsite technical assistance or reporting requirements trainings for reporters at industry events and conferences. Each session will be between 1-2 hours. The cost to develop materials for these training events is included in CLIN 0109 and the cost for travel to these events is included in CLIN 0107. Work proposed here should only include activities necessary for training provision and follow-up activities, including but not limited to, planning, registration management, collecting evaluations and reporting on attendance and feedback. Offerors shall propose a Not-to-Exceed amount, along with prposed labor pricing for this CLIN. And should include in their work plan information on the training support and provision activities they intend to provide for this CLIN.

CLIN/OBJECTIVE 0012: USER ACCEPTANCE TESTING AND SYSTEM

REQUIREMENTS DOCUMENTATION – 2017 REPORT YEAR

FTA is currently engaged in on-going development activities for the NTD online reporting system. FTA requires a contractor to provide subject matter and business process expertise to the development team to help them understand the necessary functionality and determine a relative implementation priority for each system requirement. The contractor must maintain baseline system requirements documentation. In addition to assisting the IT team with requirements development, the contractor will support FTA in user acceptance testing of NTD releases before they go into production and, where necessary, verification and validation of those changes after they have been operating in the production environment. The Government may request that the Contractor create test cases for independent validation of new requirements, track issues in the user acceptance testing process and sign off on final user acceptance.

In 2015, the IT team released approximately 10-25 tickets into production bi-weekly. Offerors shall propose a Not-to-Exceed amount to cover on-going support of these efforts to be conducted by work authorization, along with proposed labor pricing for this CLIN.

CLIN/OBJECTIVE 0013: TRANSITION SUPPORT

Offerors should assume 3 months of transition activities in which the offeror will shadow the current contractor to understand current program processes and procedures.

OPTION YEAR 1: November 1, 2018 – October 31, 2019

CLIN/OBJECTIVE 0101: HELP DESK AND…