DTNH2214R00042-_Drowsy_Driving_RFP.pdf

DTNH2216R00042

SOLICITATION, OFFER AND AWARD

4. TYPE OF SOLICITATION2. CONTRACT NUMBER 3. SOLICITATION NUMBER

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ORDER UNDER DPAS (15 CFR 700)

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NOTE: In sealed bid solicitations "offer" and "offeror" mean "bid" and "bidder".

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1. THIS CONTRACT IS A RATED RATING PAGE OF PAGES

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CAUTION: LATE Submissions, Modifications, and Withdrawals: See Section L, Provision No. 52.214-7 or 52.215-1. All offers are subject to all terms and conditions contained in this solicitation.

(Date)(Hour) local timeuntildepository located in copies for furnishing the supplies or services in the Schedule will be received at the place specified in Item 8, or if hand carried, in the

SOLICITATION

9. Sealed offers in original and

PART IV - REPRESENTATIONS AND INSTRUCTIONS

OTHER STATEMENTS OF OFFERORS

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INSTRS., CONDS., AND NOTICES TO OFFERORS

REPRESENTATIONS, CERTIFICATIONS AND

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and related documents numbered and dated):

amendments to the SOLICITATION for offerors

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NOTE: Item 12 does not apply if the solicitation includes the provisions at 52.214-16, Minimum Bid Acceptance Period.

OFFER (Must be fully completed by offeror)

IMPORTANT - Award will be made on this Form, or on Standard Form 26, or by other authorized official written notice.

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21. ACCOUNTING AND APPROPRIATION20. AMOUNT19. ACCEPTED AS TO ITEMS NUMBERED

AWARD (To be completed by government)

CODE

DTNH2216RQ-0019407/25/2016

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1400 ES 08/24/2016

Matthew Donahue matthew.donahue@dot.gov

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STANDARD FORM 33 (Rev. 9-97)

Prescribed by GSA - FAR (48 CFR) 53.214(c)

REQUEST FOR PROPOSAL

National Survey of Drowsy Driving Knowledge, Attitude and Behaviors

SOLICITATION # DTNH2216R00042

SECTION B SUPPLIES OR SERVICES AND PRICES/COSTS

B.1 SERVICES

a. The Contractor shall furnish all the necessary facilities, materials, personnel and services to perform the effort entitled: “National Survey of Drowsy Driving Knowledge, Attitude and Behaviors” in support for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s (NHTSA), Office of Behavioral Safety Research, in accordance with Section C, “Statement of Work” and as itemized in Section F, “Deliveries or Performance.” All support services provided to the Government shall be performed by the Contractor’s employees or personnel otherwise retained by the Contractor to fulfill specific work requirements of the resultant Contract.

b. The Government anticipates award of a Cost Plus Fixed Fee (CPFF) contract as described in FAR 16.306.

B.2 TOTAL ESTIMATED AMOUNT

The total estimated amount for this contract is $_TBD_________ which comprises a total estimated cost of $__TBD________ and a fixed fee of $___TBD______.

Note: The Contracting Officer (CO) is the only individual who can legally commit or obligate the Government to the expenditure of public funds. No cost chargeable to the proposed contract can be incurred before receipt of a fully executed contract or specific written authorization from the Contracting Officer.

(End of Section B)

SECTION C DESCRIPTION/SPECS./WORK STATEMENT

C.1 INTRODUCTION

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) is an agency of the U.S.

Department of Transportation (DOT). NHTSA’s mission is to save lives, prevent injuries and reduce traffic-related health care and other economic costs. Pursuant to its authority under 23 U.S.C. 401, et. seq., the agency develops, researches, promotes and implements effective educational, engineering and enforcement programs with the goal of ending preventable tragedies and reducing economic costs associated with vehicle use and highway travel.

The Office of Behavioral Safety Research focuses on improving the safety of drivers, occupants, pedestrians, and other road users through laboratory research, field studies, national surveys, and analyses of observational and archival data.

C.2 BACKGROUND

The need for sleep is an inescapable biological phenomenon that when not met leads to widespread and deleterious effects on the mind and body. Whether sleepiness is caused by sleep restriction due to a baby crying all night, a late shift at work, a teenager staying up all night with friends, or due to our natural circadian rhythm, the negative outcomes can be the same. Not surprisingly, the longer someone remains awake, regardless of the reason, negative outcomes become more probable. Sleepiness, without fail, results in cognitive and behavioral decrements that can contribute to diverse negative outcomes including poor school performance, work accidents, long-term physical and mental health consequences, and, most pertinent to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA),motor vehicle crashes resulting in injuries and death.

NHTSA is interested in drowsy driving’s impact on our Nation’s roads. While NHTSA has made research contributions throughout the years, including NHTSA’s frequently cited report from the 1998 National Center on Sleep Disorders Research (NCSDR)/NHTSA Expert Panel on Driver Fatigue and Sleepiness (NCSDR/NHTSA Expert Panel on Driver Fatigue and Sleepiness, 1998) and ongoing work on in-vehicle drowsy driving detection, many research gaps still exist that, if closed, would provide substantial progress toward understanding the impact of drowsy driving as well as offering potential solutions to the problems it causes.

Precise counts of crashes caused by drowsy driving are not yet possible. Crash investigators can look for certain clues that drowsiness was likely to have contributed to driver error, but these clues are not always identifiable or conclusive. In lieu of consistent and conclusive evidence, researchers have used various methods to estimate the overall number of crashes or crash fatalities caused by driver drowsiness. These methods range from counts of crash reports where police-reports indicate drowsiness as a contributing factor to statistical estimates based on crash reports and surveys of self-report crashes or driving experience.

In 2014, there were 846 drowsy-driving related fatalities (2.6% of all fatalities) recorded in NHTSA’s Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) database. These reported fatalities (and drowsy-driving crashes overall) have remained largely consistent over the past decade.

Between 2005 and 2009, there was an estimated average of 83,000 crashes each year related to drowsy-driving. This annual average includes 886 fatal crashes (2.5% of all fatal crashes), an estimated 37,000 injury crashes, and an estimated 45,000 property damage only crashes.

Researchers have inferred the existence of additional drowsy-driving crashes by looking for correlations with related factors such as the number of passengers in the vehicle, crash time and day of week, driver sex and crash type. One such study from the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety analyzed data from NHTSA’s National Automotive Sampling System (NASS) Crashworthiness Data System (CDS). By using a multiple imputation methodology, they estimated 7 percent of all crashes and 16.5 percent of fatal crashes involved drowsy driving.

If this estimate is accurate, it suggests that more than 5,000 people died in drowsy-driving-related motor vehicle crashes across the United States last year.

In the United States a number of surveys have asked drivers if they have fallen asleep while driving. One study found that 41% of drivers report having fallen asleep at the wheel at some point since beginning to drive, 4% fell asleep during the previous month, 7% during the past six months, and 11% during the past year (Tefft, 2010). A NHTSA study (Royal, Street, & Suite, 2002) using a nationally representative telephone survey of 4,010 drivers also found similar results: 37% of drivers reported falling asleep at the wheel and 8% fell asleep in the previous six months. More recently, the CDC (Wheaton, Chapman, Presley-Cantrell, & Croft, 2013) performed a telephone survey of 147,076 drivers across 20 U.S. States. They found that 4% of respondents reported falling asleep in the past 30 days while driving.

Drowsy drivers come from every race and ethnicity, gender, age, income level, education, and employment status. However, some groups are more frequent drowsy drivers than others.

Men report falling asleep while driving in the preceding 30 days more frequently than women (5.3% vs. 3.2%), and 25 to 34 year olds are the most likely age group to report falling asleep while driving (6.3%)(Wheaton et al., 2013). People with less than a high school diploma or GED (4.8%) are the most likely to report falling asleep among levels of educational attainment. Black (6.1%) and Hispanic (5.9%) drivers are more likely than white (3.2%) drivers to report falling asleep during driving, and employed (5.1%) and unable to work (6.1%) drivers were more likely than unemployed (3.1%) or retired drivers (1.0%) (Wheaton et al., 2013).

Recently, one study explored how college students’ self-reported attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control was able to predict study participants’ willingness and intention to engage in drowsy driving (Lee, Geiger-Brown, & Beck, 2015). Unfortunately there is limited research about the public’s knowledge and attitudes that lead to drowsy driving. Understanding the public’s attitudes and knowledge is an important step in building predictive models of behavior that will allow NHTSA to design and deploy countermeasures that can impact the incidence of drowsy driving across the United States.

C.3 OBJECTIVE

The objective is to conduct a nationally representative survey of a randomly selected sample of drivers on their attitudes, behavior and awareness of drowsy driving. In reaching that objective, this project will require identifying relevant prior surveys and publications to inform the current survey design (questions and sampling); developing a multi-modal (primarily web-based) survey instrument, a sampling plan that is designed to be representative of the United States population as well as representative of the populations of New Jersey and Arkansas; and collecting, analyzing, reporting, and planning for the dissemination of the survey results. There are also optional tasks associated with this project that, at the government’s discretion, will disseminate the results of the project and/or collect additional survey data in New Jersey and/or Arkansas at a later date.

C.4 GENERAL REQUIREMENTS

The Scope of Work consists of the design, administration, analysis and reporting of a nationally-representative survey of drivers exploring drowsy driving, knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors. The Contractor shall conduct a survey of randomly-selected drivers that provides representative statistical estimates both nationally and also within the States of New Jersey and Arkansas. Drivers in this context are individuals with or without driver’s licenses, permits or endorsements who operate motor vehicles. The survey shall be available in both English and Spanish.

This project shall follow a probability-based approach that delivers the questionnaire by the Internet and the U.S. mail. Many other NHTSA surveys have previously used random digit dialing telephone surveys. However, deteriorating response rates in telephone surveys and evolving technology require moving away from telephone surveys. NHTSA expects the primary survey method to be web-based. However, to reach certain populations and bolster response rates NHTSA anticipates that a printed-on-paper mode (administered through the U.S. mail) will be necessary to a limited extent. The methodology shall follow sampling from an address-based frame, U.S. mail contact, and random selection of a single respondent within households.

Conducting the survey will require approval from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and an Institutional Review Board (IRB) and must meet Federal privacy law .

The Contractor shall work with NHTSA to construct the questionnaire and support NHTSA in preparing the OMB package. The Contractor shall obtain IRB approval to collect data. The Contractor shall host the Web survey, administer the survey over the Internet and U.S. mail, collect the survey data, ensure the privacy of respondents and protection of project data, analyze survey data, prepare final reports, and assist NHTSA with the dissemination of the research findings.

C.5 SPECIFIC REQUIREMENTS

C.5.1 Kickoff Meeting

Within six (6) weeks of contract award, the Contractor shall participate in a one (1) day kickoff meeting in Washington, DC at NHTSA headquarters with the NHTSA COR, Contracting Officer (CO), and other interested NHTSA personnel to discuss the administration of the contract, the sampling plan, and milestones and deliverables.

NHTSA staff and the Contractor shall jointly conduct the briefing. A NHTSA staff member will provide the project background and rationale for the project and the Contractor shall present the work plan and other appropriate briefing materials.

Two (2) weeks prior to the kick-off meeting, the Contractor shall provide draft briefing materials to the COR. The COR will provide comments within one (1) week of receipt. At the briefing, the Contractor, COR, CO, Contract Specialist, and other NHTSA personnel will discuss specific details of the project to resolve any differences in approach and/or expected goals. The contractor shall prepare for a meeting that may last as long as six (6) hours.

C.5.2 Submit Sampling and Data Collection Plan

The Contractor shall develop a sampling and data collection plan necessary to obtain a nationally-representative sample of drivers. In addition, the Contractor shall include a plan for oversampling respondents in Arkansas (AK) and New Jersey (NJ) to acquire a representative sample at the State level for these two States. There may be a small number of State specific questions for NJ and AR because of differences in these two States’ drowsy driving laws. Drivers for the purposes of this project are defined as individuals who drive a motor vehicle, including those who may drive commercially. The contract’s goal is to collect approximately7,000 completed surveys in the nationally representative sample and approsimately4,000 completed surveys in both Arkansas and New Jersey. These estimates may change based on power analysis and other considerations including, financial constraints and other practical limitations. The sample plan shall include a power analysis for at least two (2) key statistical estimates. The sample shall include English and Spanish speaking persons. Any person who does not speak either language must be excluded from the study. The sampling plan shall allow the random selection of individuals in the sample using an address-based sampling frame, with the target population geographically stratified into the four census regions (Northeast, Midwest, South, and West) and sampling done independently within each region. The sampling plan shall follow a within-household sample selection procedure, in which only one person per household is provided the opportunity to take the survey.

The Contractor’s survey method must comply with survey standards endorsed by the American Association for Public Opinion Research.1

1 American Association for Public Opinion Research. http://www.aapor.org/Home.htm http://www.aapor.org/Home.htm

Data collection shall have five contact waves, as described below. The Contractor shall determine when to conduct each wave to attain the highest response rates.

• Contact Wave 1 is the initial letter invitation mailed to a household, inviting one member of the household to take the Web questionnaire. The letter will not include a printed questionnaire but will provide information to take the questionnaire on the Internet. The letter will include a cover letter, a unique participant code, hyperlink to the questionnaire, and instructions for logging on.

• Contact Wave 2 is a reminder postcard.

• Contact Wave 3 is a follow-up letter and will include a printed questionnaire and return envelope.

• Contact Wave 4 is a reminder postcard.

• Contact Wave 5 is the final reminder letter and will include a printed questionnaire and return envelope.

Within ten (10) weeks of contract award, the Contractor shall submit the Sampling and Data Collection Plan to the Contracting Officer’s Representative (COR).

Within two (2) weeks of receipt of the Sampling and Data Collection Plan, the COR will either approve the plan or request changes.

C.5.3 Institutional Review Board (IRB) Approval

The purpose of this task is to fulfill the ethical and legal requirements to conduct the research and to obtain Institutional Review Board approval. The Contractor shall prepare and implement all activities necessary for the review of data collection methods by a certified Institutional Review Board (IRB). The Contractor shall find and submit all necessary information to a certified IRB, which must be registered and covered by an approved assurance of compliance under the Department of Health and Human Services, Office for Human Research Protections. If the Contractor does not have its own IRB, the Contractor shall be responsible for procuring the services of an appropriate external IRB. Special attention should be paid to any ethical issues surrounding the collection of data from drivers under the age of 18 years old.

Within ten (10) weeks of contract award, the Contractor shall submit the IRB package to the COR for review prior to submission to the IRB.

Within two (2) weeks of receipt, the COR will review the IRB package and provide comments to the Contractor.

Any consent forms required for this information collection will have to be approved by NHTSA’s Office of the Chief Counsel prior to IRB submission. Any consent form must identify what data has the potential to be linked to a participant and describe the specific actions to be taken by the Contractor and NHTSA to protect that information. The consent form must indicate that NHTSA has the rights to the data obtained through the survey. Upon receipt of the revised IRB package from the COR, the Contractor shall be responsible for submitting the package to the IRB and getting IRB clearance. A copy of the official IRB approval shall be submitted to the COR upon receipt of approval from the IRB. This task may be concurrent with other tasks.

C.5.4 Support Preparation of Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Application

The Office of Management and Budget (OMB), pursuant to the Paperwork Reduction Act, requires clearance of any information collected by or on behalf of a Federal executive agency. OMB clearance is required for this effort. OMB clearance typically takes approximately six (6) to twelve (12) months.

The Contactor shall be familiar with OMB’s Guidance on Agency Survey and Statistical Information Collections2 and ensure that all data collection conforms to OMB’s regulations and guidelines.

Concurrently with beginning “Questionnaire Development” (paragraph (C.5.5) below), the Contractor shall begin preparing a Draft 60-day notice for posting in the Federal Register, as well as draft forms (e.g. questionnaire items) and a draft burden table. The Draft 60-day notice, forms, and burden table shall be submitted to the COR within twenty (20) weeks of contract award.

Once the Contractor has submitted the draft 60-day notice and other required documents, the Contractor shall begin working on Supporting Statements A & B, forms, other attachments, and a draft 30-day notice. The complete OMB package including Supporting Statements A & B, forms, other attachments, and a draft 30-day notice shall be submitted to the COR within twenty eight (28) weeks of contract award.

No data collection may begin until all the necessary OMB approvals have been received.

This task may be conducted concurrently with other tasks. During the period of OMB’s clearance review, the Contractor shall be available to respond to questions from OMB and make revisions as necessary. .

C.5.5 Questionnaire Development

The purpose of the questionnaire is to measure the current status of attitudes, knowledge, and behavior of drivers with respect to drowsy driving. The data will help track the nature and scope of the drowsy driving problem; obtain self-reported baseline data of drowsy driving frequency, as well as the public’s beliefs and attitudes toward drowsy driving.

Some survey questions will be based on (or exact replicas) of other surveys about sleep and drowsy driving. However, significant original question development will be required during the questionnaire development task, including a number of questions specifically designed to assess the awareness of State drowsy driving laws in New Jersey and Arkansas (only

2 See OMB website: http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/inforeg_statpolicy/ http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/inforeg_statpolicy/ presented to residents of these States). The contractor shall consult with interested third parties and experts in public health attitudes and behavior, sleep science/medicine, and traffic safety in the development of the questionnaire. It is in NHTSA’s interests to include national stakeholder organizations and state organizations (e.g prosecutors’ offices and state highway offices) in this process to make the survey as successful as possible. The Contractor shall perform a literature review that will inform questionnaire development prior to submitting the draft questionnaire (C.5.5.1). This literature review shall include an annotated bibliography to be delivered to the COR along with the draft questionnaire. This literature review shall also form the basis of the introduction section of the final report (C.5.13).

The questionnaire shall be made available in English and Spanish.

This task will follow an iterative process in which NHTSA reviews drafts of the questionnaire and provides comments to the Contractor, and the Contractor revises and returns the draft to the COR.

The subtasks below describe this effort as well as the deliverable dates.

C.5.5.1 Submit Draft Questionnaire (in English)

Within sixteen (16) weeks of Contract Award, the Contractor shall deliver to the COR the initial draft English questionnaire and the annotated bibliography.

Within two (2) weeks of receipt of the Draft Questionnaire, the COR will either approve the questionnaire for cognitive testing, or request changes.

C.5.5.2 Cognitive Testing of Draft Questionnaire

Upon approval from the COR on the Draft Questionnaire, the Contractor shall conduct cognitive testing of the questionnaire. The purpose of the cognitive testing is to determine appropriate wording and sequencing of the questionnaire items by evaluating the quality of questions and the extent to which questions gather the intended information.

Up to nine (9) people shall participate in a cognitive interview for the English version. Each person selected shall be a driver of age 18 years or older.

The Contractor shall carry out all preparatory activities for conducting the cognitive interviews, including determining appropriate probes for the testing, securing an adequate facility for conducting the testing, and developing and carrying out a plan for subject recruitment.

The Contractor shall audio record the interactions with the subjects during the testing; but the Contractor shall not record any information that could be used to determine the identity of the subjects. The Contractor shall notify the subject of its intent to record the testing and obtain approval to do so. Any subject that does not approve the audio recording will not be recorded or used as part of the cognitive testing. At the conclusion of the project, the Contractor shall destroy the audio recordings.

Within twenty-six (26) weeks of award the Contractor shall provide a report to the COR on the results of the cognitive testing. The Contractor shall recommend changes in question wording or sequencing suggested by the results of the cognitive interviewing in this report.

Within four (4) weeks of receipt of the report, the COR shall approve or comment on the report and return to the Contractor.

One (1) week after receiving approval from the COR on the recommendations, the Contractor shall submit the final version of the questionnaire in English.

C.5.5.3 Submit Spanish Language Version

Within thirty-four (34) weeks, the Contractor shall submit a Spanish language version of the questionnaire to the COR.

C.5.6 Develop Internet and Paper Questionnaires

Following the successful completion of survey questions in C.5.5 and the required OMB submission in C.5.4, the Contractor shall develop, test and finalize the Internet and paper versions of the questionnaire. This task has a subtask for the Internet (C.5.6.1) and printed-on-paper (C.5.6.2) versions. For each mode, the design of the questionnaire shall follow usability principles and best practices, resulting in a pleasing and professional appearance that is neat and uncluttered. The appearance and functionality of the questionnaires can impact response rates.

The questionnaire shall include:

• An Introduction that explains the survey’s purpose and provides easy-to-follow steps to ensure anonymity of participants.

• General Instructions on how to progress through the survey in the introduction or within each new section to let the audience know how the survey works. Respondents should not have to look back and forth in the survey to see what they are supposed to do.

• A survey body that is visually appealing and user-friendly.

• Questions that are numbered sequentially throughout the survey, even if the survey is divided by pages or sections.

• Ease of navigation from page to page (back and forth).

• User assistance tools such as help screens (in the Web and Mobile Device modes, and text boxes or similar for the paper mode) for certain items (e.g., the respondent can click to get a definition that would come up if needed).

• End of Survey/Thank You Page.

The subtasks below describe this effort as well as the deliverable dates.

C.5.6.1 Web Component and Internet-based Questionnaire

The Contractor shall develop and host the Web site that administers the survey and collects survey data. The Contractor shall work with the NHTSA Office of Chief Information Officer (CIO) to identify the technology and data security requirements related to the surveys as set forth in section H.2. In general, the Website and database shall meet all Federal requirements for information security and data protection of PII (Personally Identifiable Information) as required by section H.2., and the Contractor shall provide protection for the system from physical damage (e.g., fire, water damage). The front-end survey webpage and back-end database should be either Government Off-the-shelf or Commercial Off-the-shelf software unless the Contractor can sufficiently justify the use of either Modified Off-the-shelf software or a completely custom solution. The questionnaire/application must work both on desktop and mobile device web browsers.

The Contractor shall develop the questionnaire for Desktop and Mobile Friendly Web applications. The Contractor shall develop and test a prototype of the Web questionnaire, which will serve as a demonstration and evaluation tool for the Contractor and NHTSA. The Contractor shall design the Web component with at a minimum the following:

• Meets or exceeds IT requirements set forth in H.2

• Controlled access to the survey that requires entry of a valid unique PIN recognized by the system. Once a completed survey has been submitted, entry to the system is no longer allowed with the associated PIN. The system shall be completely protected against a respondent being able to access data submitted by other respondents.

• "Percent Completed" indicator/Progress Bar for each major section.

• Consistency checks that alert the respondent to an inconsistency and asks for clarification.

• Ability of the respondent to type in “other” response when the response categories may not apply, with the database capturing these verbatim responses.

• Ability for the respondent to pause and leave the system and then re-enter without losing the responses s/he had previously entered. The system should direct the respondent to the location where s/he had previously departed the survey as the point of re-entry.

• A review and edit feature that allows the participant to adjust responses prior to submitting the survey.

• A clearly marked mechanism by which respondents can alert the Contractor to operational difficulties in taking the survey, followed by an immediate return e-mail giving a time frame as to when they will get a response and where they should look for it.

Within thirty-six (36) weeks of contract award, the Contractor shall deliver a prototype to the COR of the Web version of the questionnaire. The delivery of this prototype may be provided over the Internet, for the COR to review from NHTSA headquarters via the Internet, or another mutually agreed upon location (e.g., Contractor’s office).

Within one (1) week of receipt, the COR shall provide comments and feedback, which may require the Contractor to adjust the prototype.

C.5.6.2 Paper Questionnaire

Within 36 weeks of contract award, the Contractor shall produce a printed-on-paper prototype questionnaire and cover letter, and submit them to the COR for review and comment. The COR will provide feedback on the prototype and the cover letter within 2 weeks of receipt.

C.5.6.3 Usability Testing of the Prototype Questionnaires

Within forty (40) weeks of contract award, the Contractor shall conduct usability testing of the Internet and paper versions of the questionnaire. The objective of the usability testing is to identify problems in the delivery or the self-administration of the questionnaires. The Internet testing shall include testing on desk top PCs and mobile devices (e.g., a tablet). The subjects shall be recruited by the Contractor.

The number of subjects may not exceed 9 individuals if OMB approval has not been granted at this point. The Contractor shall address any problems identified with the prototypes from the usability testing, and provide recommendations for solutions to the COR. If necessary (e.g., if the results of the usability testing suggest that the prototypes need multiple revisions), then the usability testing shall be conducted for another iteration, on the revised prototypes.

Within forty-two (42) weeks of contract award, the Contractor shall prepare and deliver a letter report of Usability Testing with Recommendations to the COR.

Within two (2) weeks of receiving the letter report, the COR will either approve the prototypes for deployment and data collection, or request changes.

C.5.7 Data Management System

The Contractor shall provide documentation on the system used for collecting and managing project data and the security plan for the system. The system shall have the capability of integrating the survey data collected from the Internet and paper modes. The Contractor shall document the security measures for protecting the project data and hardware and software system and the process for integrating project data and survey data collection. The Contractor shall ensure that the data management system meets or surpasses Federal standards for information security, see section H.2.. Significant changes to the system shall be fully tested prior to implementation to ensure no negative consequences occur upon implementation and meet or surpass Federal information security requirements, see section H.2. System changes that are significant shall require approval from NHTSA’s COR.

The Contractor is responsible for backing up the system and survey data and must have the capability to restore the system in the event of a disaster. The Contractor shall describe the Disaster Recovery Plan in a brief letter report delivered to the COR within thirty (30) weeks of contract award.

Within two (2) weeks of receipt of the letter report, the COR will provide comments and either approve the Disaster Recovery Plan, or request changes.

C.5.8 Conduct a Mini-Pilot

Within forty-four (44) weeks of award, the Contractor shall conduct a mini-pilot of the survey administration and data collection system. The purpose of this task is to identify problems associated with the alternative versions of the questionnaire (Web, mobile device, paper) and assess the interface including the adequacy of the instructions.

The Contractor shall assess how accurately and reliably the survey system captures survey data, and how efficient interactions are with the Web component and the paper form. The Contractor shall make adjustments to the data collection and management system, the web component, or the paper form, as necessary if indicated by the results of the mini-pilot.

The deliverable for this task is a brief letter report on the Results of the Mini-Pilot Test and Recommendations for system and methodology revisions. The brief letter report shall be delivered to the COR within forty-six (46) weeks of contract award.

Within two (2) weeks of receipt of the letter report on the Mini-Pilot Test, the COR will provide comments and either approve the system for data collection, or request changes.

C.5.9 Conduct Data Collection

Upon receipt of clearance from OMB to administer the survey, NHTSA will provide a copy of the OMB approval number to the Contractor, and the Contractor shall apply the approval number to the forms (survey instruments) according to OMB regulations. The Contractor shall begin collecting data within two (2) weeks of OMB clearance.

The Contractor shall take steps at each stage during data collection to ensure that the sample is selected according to the sampling plan, that the data from the questionnaires are being captured correctly, that the systems for securing the data are securing the data, and that the interfaces with survey participants are working as designed.

To control the quality of the data collection, the Contractor shall monitor and verify subsets of the surveys by checking the data against the questionnaire and reviewing frequencies to detect omissions (e.g., skip errors) or other entry mistakes. If such problems are detected, the Contractor shall inform NHTSA and take action to fix the problem and verify that the fix worked.

During the data collection period, the Contractor shall provide to the COR a status of the data collection on a biweekly basis via email and conference call. The status shall consist of a synopsis of data collection activities and key numbers revealing the data collection activities that include the following elements:

• Number and geographic region of mailed invitations, reminders, surveys, etc.

• Number and geographic regions of returned completed paper surveys

• Number and geographic region of completed Internet surveys

• Results from the quality checks

• Any contacts (e.g., phone calls or email messages) from potential subjects with explanations why

• Any problems that would require support or involvement from NHTSA (e.g., security breaches, problems emerging with the data collection methodology, questionnaire, etc.)

NHTSA expects the period of data collection to take about ten to twelve (10-12) weeks.

C.5.10 Prepare Survey Data for Analysis

At the conclusion of data collection, the Contractor shall prepare the survey project data for analysis and submission to NHTSA. This requires, among other activities, confirming that any and all Personally Identifiable Information, as defined by DOT Order 1351.18 Privacy Risk Management Policy, is removed, merging the questionnaire data collected by the different response modes into one database, conducting a non-response bias analysis to determine whether non-responders differed from responders, and providing sample weights needed to produce national and State estimates.

In addition, the Contractor shall code responses to open-ended questions and implement procedures that assure that open-ended responses are coded into the correct categories. This shall include a small sampling of open-ended responses across the questionnaires by project staff to assess the accuracy of their coding.

The Contractor shall review the database to determine if any corrections are needed regarding the flow of cases across questionnaire items (e.g., if some cases responded to an item for which they should have been ineligible). The Contractor shall make corrections as needed. The COR shall also review the database, and shall notify the Contractor of any corrections to make in the databases. The Contractor shall make corrections as needed.

The Contractor shall weight the data and ensure the weights are appropriately applied to the summary results (response frequencies, cross tabulations, etc.). The Contractor shall maintain unweighted data that can also be used to output summary results.

Within four (4) weeks of completing data collection (C.5.9), the Contractor shall complete the preparation of the survey data.

C.5.11 Deliver a Final Data Set with Documentation & Perform Statistical Analysis of Data Set

The Contractor shall provide three (3) copies of the final database formatted for direct PC use by NHTSA staff and with associated documentation, to the NHTSA COR, in Comma Separated Values format as well as a copy of the data in whatever statistical software package the Contractor used to perform statistical analysis. NHTSA prefers data to be in file formats compatible with SPSS, SAS, or in an open source software package (e.g. R).

The contractor shall format the databases for ease of use for analysis and constructing new variables. The Contractor shall ensure that questionnaire items are appropriately formatted as string, numeric variables, or other as appropriate.

The documentation attached to the databases shall include:

• Detailed specification of all variables in the database. The documentation shall include the variable name, the questionnaire item to which it relates, field location, and range.

• Frequencies for all variables.

• Weighted and un-weighted frequencies for all items on the questionnaire.

• Any algorithms performed on the data to transform the data.

The Contractor shall perform appropriate descriptive and inferential statistics in order to describe the data. For inferential statistical analysis the contractor, when appropriate, shall use Bayesian statistical techniques as well as traditional frequentist null-hypothesis testing.

Within eight (8) weeks of completing data collection (C.5.9), the Contractor shall deliver the database set with documentation to the COR.

Within four weeks (4) weeks of receipt of the database and documentation, the COR will provide comments and either approve the database deliverable or request changes.

C.5.12 Prepare and Deliver Final Report

The Contractor shall prepare a Final Report.

Within twenty (20) weeks of completing data collection (C.5.9), the Contractor shall submit a Draft Final Report to the COR for review. The report shall adhere to standards detailed in the most recent edition of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (APA). The order of authorship shall reflect the relative contributions of the authors’, including the COR’s, to the entire project.

The Draft Final Report shall include the following sections:

• an Executive Summary;

• an Introduction section that describes the project’s purpose and objectives as well as a brief literature review;

• a description of the study methodology;

• Results section including descriptive and inferential statistics;

• Discussion and Conclusions sections;

• Reference section; and any required appendices (e.g. frequency tables graphs, and other figures).

Within four (4) weeks of receipt, the COR will provide feedback to the Contractor on the Draft Final Report, and the Contractor shall address the COR comments and submit a revised

Final Report within 4 weeks after receiving feedback from the COR. This iteration will continue until the COR accepts the methodology report as Final.

C.5.13 Prepare a Manuscript for Submission to a Peer-Reviewed Journal

Within thirty (30) weeks of completing data collection (C.5.9), the Contractor, working jointly with the COR (as co-authors), shall write a manuscript for submission to a peer-reviewed academic journal. The Contractor will lead this task with the COR providing input.

The COR will obtain agency review. The Contractor, with input from the COR, shall make any required revisions. The Contractor shall not submit the manuscript for publication review unless NHTSA approval has been granted. If NHTSA determines publication is appropriate, NHTSA will provide its approval within four (4) weeks of receipt of the journal manuscript. If reviews are received from the Journal Editor, the Contractor, with input from the COR, will prepare revisions, if necessary, for publication.

C.5.14 Dissemination Plan

Within twenty-eight (28) weeks of completing data collection (C.5.9), the Contractor shall submit a dissemination plan that covers the following six topics and answers the questions contained within each topic bullet listed below. To be clear, this task does not require the Contractor to disseminate any product, instead, it requires a written plan that identifies and discusses the most effective and appropriate dissemination activities for the results of the project. There is an optional task noted below that will cover the various activities related to dissemination based on this Dissemination Plan. See “Optional Task 1: Dissemination” (C.5.15) for further details.

• The Goal: What are the goals, objectives, and potential impact of the dissemination effort?

• Key Messages: What messages can most effectively explain what the project results mean to each intended audience, why they are important, and what action should be taken as a result.

• Target Audience: Who is affected most by or interested in this project?

• Medium/Method: What is the most effective way to reach each audience?

• Execution: When should each aspect of the dissemination plan occur? Who should be responsible for each dissemination activity? Are there any potential challenges (and mitigations) to executing the dissemination plan?

• Evaluation: How can we (NHTSA and others) evaluate the success of the dissemination efforts?

C.5.15 Optional Task 1: Dissemination

If NHTSA exercises this option, the Contractor, applying the Dissemination Plan (C.5.14), shall perform the activities outlined in the plan, and approved by the COR, which may include (but are not limited to): travel to conferences, presenting webinars, writing publications, creating websites, or other outreach activities. The Contractor shall write a letter report (not to exceed 10 pages) to the COR detailing the activities performed during the dissemination optional task. This dissemination task shall be completed within 12 months of execution of the option.

The NHTSA CO will notify the contractor within (6) months of completing the Dissemination Plan whether NHTSA intends to exercise this optional task. Based upon the Dissemination Plan prepared in C.5.14, the Contractor shall prepare a detailed cost proposal to include all related costs and fixed fees. If NHTSA agrees to exercise the option, the NHTSA CO will modify the Contract accordingly. The Contractor shall not begin work on this task until NHTSA exercises the option.

C.5.16 Optional Task 2: Additional State Survey 1

Upon notification that NHTSA exercised Optional Task 2, and IRB and OMB have provided clearance for this Optional Task, the Contractor shall conduct the survey again in one U.S.

State (To be specified by NHTSA). During the data collection period, the Contractor shall provide to the COR a status of the data collection on a biweekly basis via email and conference call. The status shall consist of a synopsis of data collection activities and key numbers revealing the data collection activities.

NHTSA expects data collection to take ten to twelve (10-12) weeks from exercising this Optional Task. Once data collection is completed the Contractor shall prepare the data as specified in C.5.10 and deliver the data as specified in C.5.11. The database shall be delivered to the COR within 18 weeks of NHTSA exercising this optional task. Finally, the Contractor shall prepare a letter report highlighting the basic findings of this optional task data collection as well as any differences between initial data collection in the State and data collected under this optional task. The letter report shall be no more than 25 pages and be delivered to the COR within 26 weeks of NHTSA exercising this optional task.

The NHTSA CO will notify the contractor within (36) months after contract award of NHTSA’s intent to exercise this optional task. Based upon the State specified by NHTSA, the Contractor shall prepare a detailed cost proposal to include all related costs and fixed fees. .If NHTSA agrees to exercise the option, the NHTSA CO will modify the Contract accordingly. The Contractor shall not begin work on this task until NHTSA exercises the option.

C.5.17 Optional Task 3: Additional State Survey 2

Upon notification that NHTSA exercised Optional Task 3, and IRB and OMB has provided clearance for Optional Task 3, , the Contractor shall conduct the survey again in one U.S.

State (To be specified by NHTSA). During the data collection period, the Contractor shall provide to the COR a status of the data collection on a biweekly basis via email and conference call. The status shall consist of a synopsis of data collection activities and key numbers revealing the data collection activities.

NHTSA expects data collection to take ten to twelve (10-12) weeks from exercising this Optional Task. Once data collection is completed the Contractor shall prepare the data as specified in C.5.10 and deliver the data as specified in C.5.11. The database shall be delivered to the COR within 18 weeks of NHTSA exercising this optional task. Finally, the Contractor shall prepare a letter report highlighting the basic findings of this optional task data collection as well as any differences between initial data collection in the State and data collected under this optional task. The letter report shall be no more than 25 pages and be delivered to the COR within 26 weeks of NHTSA exercising this optional task.

The NHTSA CO will notify the contractor within (36) months after contract award of NHTSA’s intent to exercise this optional task. Based upon the State specified by NHTSA, the Contractor shall prepare a detailed cost proposal to include all related costs and fixed fees. If NHTSA agrees to exercise the option, the NHTSA CO will modify this agreement accordingly. The Contractor shall not begin work on this task until NHTSA exercises the option.

C.6 DEFINITIONS AND ACRONYMS

The following is a list of key definitions and acronyms used throughout the Statement of Work (SOW). This list may not be exhaustive.

CO Contracting Officer COR Contracting Officer’s Representative CS Contracting Specialist GIF Graphic Interchange Format GPO Government Printing Office HTML Hyper Text Markup Language IRB Institutional Review Board JPEG Joint Photographic Expert Group OMB Office of Management and Budget SPSS Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (Software) SAS Statistical Analysis System (Software)(End of Section C)

SECTION D PACKAGING AND MARKING

D.1 PACKAGING AND MARKING

Preservation and packaging of all shipments or mailing of all work delivered under this contract shall be done in accordance with good commercial practices and to insure acceptance by common carrier (if applicable) and safe transportation at the most economical rate(s).

Any deliverables required by this contract shall be submitted to the applicable personnel identified in Section F of this contract. Due to security concerns, deliverables transmitted via regular U.S. Mail experience significant delay in reaching an intended destination and, as part of the screening process, may be damaged. For these reasons, the U.S. Mail should not be used to transmit deliverables. Rather, the Contractor is encouraged to use electronic mail to the maximum extent possible.

D.2 FORMATTING TEXT…