HIERD_Sources Sought Notice.docx

SOURCES SOUGHT NOTICE # 693JJ3-25-SS-0002

Title: Highway Infrastructure Engineering and Research Data Services (HIERD)

SECTION 1. SUBMITTAL INFORMATION

See below Section 6 entitled “REQUESTED CONTENT IN RESPONSE TO THIS SSN” for submittal and content instructions. One (1) electronic copy should be submitted.

This is only a Market Survey for written information. This is neither a Request for Proposals nor an announcement of a forthcoming solicitation. Information received will be considered solely for the purpose of identifying potential interest and capability for providing non- personal technical support to the Federal Highway Administration’s (FHWA’s) Office of Infrastructure Research and Development (HRDI) at the Turner-Fairbank Highway Research Center (TFHRC) in McLean, Virginia, in developing, conducting quality checks, managing, analyzing and visualizing infrastructure research data sets. The FHWA is not obligated to contact any or all respondents, hold meetings with any or all respondents, or solicit proposals because of this request. The FHWA will not reimburse costs associated with responding to this request and does not intend to pay for the information received.

After reviewing the responses, the FHWA may:

· Contact businesses or organizations individually to ask for clarifications.

· Invite businesses or organizations to attend or present at a virtual or physical workshop to further define the requirements and capabilities of the program.

To protect the integrity of any future procurement that may arise from this Sources Sought Notice (SSN), information regarding the technical point of contact will not be provided and no appointments for presentations will be accepted.

SECTION 2. INTRODUCTION

The FHWA’s Office of Infrastructure Research and Development (HRDI) at the TFHRC in McLean, Virginia, conducts and oversees research and development programs and projects that address critical highway infrastructure needs and priorities of national importance. The Long-Term Infrastructure Performance Team (LTIP) within HRDI aims at improving the performance of highway infrastructure assets through execution of long-term research programs, developing data and technical knowledge leading to more efficient design, construction, rehabilitation, maintenance, preservation, and management of these assets. LTIP programs include the Long-Term Pavement Performance (LTPP) Program and the Long-Term Bridge Performance (LTBP) Program. These programs, conducted in collaboration with the State department of transportation, assemble the data needed for improving infrastructure design and advance the understanding of highway infrastructure performance. The resulting data, knowledge and engineering tools are made available on the FHWA InfoHighway™ (https://infohighway.fhwa.dot.gov) web portals. FHWA InfoHighway is a comprehensive online resource providing centralized access to a vast array of transportation-related information. Developed and managed by FHWA’s LTIP team, InfoHighway supports State departments of transportation engineers, researchers, and public users by offering a wealth of transportation and highway infrastructure data, documentation, research results, analytical tools, and visualization features.

Currently, InfoHighway consists of five web portals, LTPP InfoPave, LTBP InfoBridge, FHWA InfoMaterials, FHWA InfoPTF and FHWA InfoTechnology. Each portal serves a unique and valuable purpose and means of highway infrastructure performance related data and information access.

The research area and data include the following:

· FHWA Long-Term Pavement Performance (LTPP) program and related data.

· FHWA Long-Term Bridge Performance (LTBP) program and National Bridge Inventory (NBI) Data.

· FHWA Pavement Testing Facility (PTF) and related data.

· Other FHWA highway infrastructure research and materials testing data and technical knowledge.

Overview of LTPP Program and Related Data:

Started in 1987 as part of the Strategic Highway Research Program (SHRP) and managed by the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) since 1992, the Long-Term Pavement Performance (LTPP) program studies the performance of in-service pavements. The primary goal of the LTPP program is to understand how and why pavements perform as they do. Huge amount of pavement performance related data has been collected by LTPP using standardized data collection procedures and protocols on a variety of pavement types. This information is stored in an Information Management System (IMS) and has been available to researchers since the early nineties with new data and data elements added every year. Since 2014, LTPP data and relevant knowledge have been disseminated and visualized through the LTPP InfoPave web portal (https://infopave.fhwa.dot.gov/). LTPP InfoPave is the central portal to the LTPP data and knowledge, and has been used by thousands of pavement engineers and researchers worldwide to advance pavement engineering. More information about the LTPP program is available at https://highways.dot.gov/research/long-term-infrastructure-performance/ltpp/long-term-pavement-performance.

Overview of LTBP Program, NBI, and Related Data:

The Long-Term Bridge Performance (LTBP) program was congressionally mandated under the Safe, Accountable, Flexible, and Efficient Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users (SAFETEA-LU). In 2008 FHWA initiated the LTBP Program, with an overall objective of periodically monitoring representative samples of bridges nationwide to collect, document, maintain, and manage research-quality performance data over an extended time horizon. This is accomplished by taking advantage of advanced nondestructive evaluation (NDE) and structural health monitoring (SHM) technologies in addition to traditional visual bridge inspection approaches. The LTBP Information Management System (IMS) stores and manages data collected by the LTBP program, as well as data collected from other sources. An example is National Bridge Inventory (NBI) data. Launched in January 2019, the LTBP InfoBridge web portal, https://infobridge.fhwa.dot.gov/, is an intuitive and user-friendly web portal to access, visualize, and analyze bridge performance data for more than 620,000 bridges in the United States. The portal also includes an extensive suite of intuitive data analytics and bridge engineering productivity tools that facilitate bridge data visualization and analytics. More information about the LTBP program is available at http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/research/tfhrc/programs/infrastructure/structures/ltbp/.

Overview of the FHWA PTF and Related Data:

The FHWA Pavement Testing Facility (PTF) has been recently reconstructed with new instrumented pavement test lanes and pavement test machines (PTMs) to monitor the health of the pavement field and collect data on the performance of the different pavement structures. The newly constructed PTF facility was thoughtfully designed from the bottom-up to facilitate a holistic evaluation of various pavement structures, with the potential to achieve many practical, interdisciplinary research objectives.

The resulting data, information, and products will be stored in a modern database management system and disseminated via FHWA InfoPTF which will provide a public and user-friendly access to various datasets that include information about the design, construction, materials testing, performance test results, forensics, and analysis data. It will also house relevant reference documents, research publications, and analysis results. These datasets will be made available for pavement engineers, researchers, and other individuals to advance the state of the art and practice in improving the durability and quality of pavements. InfoPTF will be available within FHWA’s InfoHighway web portal series at https://infohighway.fhwa.dot.gov/.

For more information about the PTF see: Redesign of the Third-Generation FHWA Pavement Testing Facility | FHWA Overview of other FHWA highway infrastructure research and materials testing data and knowledge:

Through leading our nation’s publicly-funded infrastructure research, FHWA has accumulated large amount of valuable research data from laboratories, materials testing centers, and other research studies. The FHWA InfoMaterials web portal was developed to provide public access to data, documentation and results of highway infrastructure research data collected through FHWA, State, and other national efforts. The FHWA InfoMaterials web portal offers storage, retrieval, dissemination, and visualization capabilities for the data. Examples of datasets currently available through InfoMaterials include the FHWA Mobile Asphalt Technology Center (MATC) dataset, the Mobile Concrete Technology Center (MCTC) dataset, and other highway infrastructure materials testing or research datasets. FHWA InfoMaterials web portal is located at FHWA InfoMaterials - Home.

The FHWA InfoTechnology web portal (https://infotechnology.fhwa.dot.gov/ ) was developed to disseminate technical knowledge on Non-Destructive Evaluation (NDE) technologies for the assessment of highway infrastructure systems and components. It is a problem-focused tool that assists users in finding and utilizing recommended technology for the non-destructive evaluation of bridges, pavements, and tunnel components, and for detecting and locating underground utilities.

SECTION 3. PURPOSE

The purpose of this SSN is to assist the FHWA in its market research efforts for a potential requirement to provide engineering services including expertise in pavement, bridge, and other highway infrastructure engineering as well as data management, data analytics, and web application development. The FHWA will use the results of this and other market research efforts to determine an acquisition strategy for future award(s) to acquire these services.

SECTION 4. OBJECTIVES

The scope of a potential contract would include civil engineers (pavement and bridge engineers in particular), researchers, database engineers, data analysts, computer programmers, technical writers, and other personnel required to fulfill the following objectives.

· Data Quality Control: Perform quality control and quality assurance of highway infrastructure research data collected in the field and produced in engineering laboratories. Clean and process the data into research-quality information to be used in nationwide research studies that improve the design, construction, rehabilitation, and management of highway infrastructure assets.

· Data Management: Upgrade and enhance existing information management systems consisting of highly technical databases, data warehouses, metadata, etc.

· Data Visualization: Develop visualization techniques that enable engineers and research scientists to readily understand and make use of the vast amount of infrastructure research data that is generated by FHWA and other transportation research entities.

· Data Augmentation: Periodically, add new validated research data sets to the FHWA InfoHighway web portals as appropriate.

Tasks/Activities Some or all of the following activities may be required:

· Review and provide quality control on the collected and computed highway infrastructure engineering data. Datasets to be validated, at a minimum, shall include:

· In service highway infrastructure performance monitoring data collected by non-destructive testing equipment (e.g. weigh-in-motion systems, falling-weight deflectometers, automated longitudinal and transverse profile measurements, accelerated pavement testing machines, etc.);

· Manually collected infrastructure performance field data (e.g., bridge condition visual inspections);

· Laboratory test results; and

· Highway infrastructure engineering research data.

· Process and develop appropriate information management systems including, but not limited to, highly technical databases, data warehouse, metadata, etc.

· Periodically, add new validated research datasets to the FHWA InfoHighway web portals as appropriate.

· Develop visualization techniques that enable engineers and research scientists to readily understand and make use of the vast amount of infrastructure research data that is generated by HRDI and other research entities.

· Develop intuitive analytics tools that enable engineers and research scientists to efficiently analyze and extract actionable insights from large volumes of infrastructure research data generated by HRDI and other research entities.

· Enhance, maintain, and provide technical support to LTPP InfoPave, LTBP InfoBridge, FHWA InfoMaterials, FHWA InfoPTF, FHWA InfoTechnology and other infrastructure research data related web portals on FHWA InfoHighway as appropriate.

SECTION 5. ANTICIPATED MAGNITUDE

The FHWA tentatively anticipates that Highway Infrastructure Research Engineering Services and Data Management Contract effort may be a small business set-aside with a period of performance of up to five years with an estimated total value of $18M. The type(s) of contract(s) is yet to be determined.

SECTION 6. REQUESTED CONTENT IN RESPONSE TO THIS SSN

Interested firms responding to this SSN must provide a capability statement demonstrating their capability and capacity in supporting efforts that have similar magnitude of size, scope, and complexity. All small business firms interested in this opportunity are encouraged to submit a response to this SSN. However, FHWA will review capability statements from all business sizes.

Interested firms are requested to submit a capability statement that addresses their ability to deliver the services described in Section 4, above. Interested firms may at their own discretion submit comments on the various technical assistance requirements described in this SSN. In doing so, interested firms may identify any gaps or suggest innovative approaches to delivering technical assistance not covered in the requirements herein.

Instructions Responses shall not exceed 10 pages in length double-spaced with font size twelve or larger. Email attachment should be submitted in Adobe Acrobat (.pdf). Do not submit marketing materials, slide presentations, or technical papers. Electronic files must be less than 5MB with a page size of 8.5x11”. The email subject line must include, “Sources Sought Notice: “Highway Infrastructure Engineering and Research Data Services.”

Responses shall clearly identify:

1. Name, Address, Point of Contact.

2. Size Standard under NAICS code 541715.

3. Identify all applicable classifications for your organization, such as:

a. Small Business

b. Woman-owned business

c. 8(a) business

d. Large business

e. Small disadvantaged business

f. HUBZone business

g. SDVOB business

h. Non-profit.

4. Description of technical capabilities and relevant experience to perform the tasks and activities described above.

5. Demonstration of understanding, and/or provide examples of recent, prior experience with providing engineering, and technical services necessary to support highway infrastructure research and development, preferably in the Federal sector. For Federal sector experience please provide contract number and contact information.

6. Company’s ability to begin performance immediately upon contract award to ensure there are no interruptions in keeping all the web portals operational.

7. A summary description of the organization’s motivation and why the business is best suited to provide the requested services and activities, as described in Section 3.

8. A summary description of relevant technical expertise, capabilities, and facilities the organization would be willing to share or provide with regard to non-personal technical support services to support task areas and activities as described in both Sections 2 and 3 of this request.

9. A summary of the organization’s planned teaming arrangements and management plan. This effort requires several distinct sets of expertise: 1) pavement and bridge engineering, highway infrastructure performance monitoring, especially LTPP and LTBP programs, 2) highway infrastructure data processing, QC/QA, validation, visualization and management, and 3) cloud data computing, dataset management and security, and web portal development.

FHWA anticipates that this work will require the efforts of highly qualified and innovative cross-discipline team with in-depth knowledge and significant experience in all the tasks and activities identified in Section 3 Scope of Activities of this document.

Thank you for participating in US DOT’s market research.