RMS_Q&A_-_Round_1.pdf

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS FOR

HTC711-17-R-R010

RAIL MANAGEMENT SUPPORT

QUESTION #1: Who decides on the multi-year award status - the vendor or USTRANSCOM?

ANSWER #1: An award is made based on the Period of Performance referenced in the Request for Proposal (RFP). This requirement includes a 10-month base period and four (4) one-year option periods. The options are only exercised if there is a continuing need for the requirement as determined by the Government.

QUESTION #2: Would USTRANSCOM pay for upfront costs for system enhancements or other hardware needed?

ANSWER #2: The payment for this contract will be based on the CLIN structure as stated in the RFP, Attachment 1 – Pricing Sheet.

QUESTION #3: Is USTRANSCOM amenable to allowing contractor to provide manual reports during the first year of the award while their system is being upgraded?

ANSWER #3: A period of time has been allocated between contract award date and the date when the successful offeror begins performance (approximately 45 days) to allow for programming the specific requirements.

QUESTION #4: What are the origins and destinations involved with this program?

ANSWER #4: In the course of a year, there will be approximately 100-120 distinct origins/destinations. The majority are military troop, training, and ammunition installations; military and commercial ports; and naval shipyards and bases. At times, Reserve and National Guard units use commercial trackage to load or unload.

QUESTION #5: Are all 2,000 pieces of rail equipment moving on a monthly basis or is part of this fleet in storage?

ANSWER #5: Over the last 5 years, on average each car in the Defense Freight Railway Interchange Fleet (DFRIF) (each DODX car) was loaded 4.3 to 6.5 times a year. Looking at different cars types, about a quarter of the fleet was loaded 8 to 9 times a year, on average, and some specialized car types averaged less than 1 load a year. In any given month, 41% to 71% of the loaded cars tracked were DFRIF cars, the remainder being supplied by the railroads. Total carloads tracked varied between 15,500 and 22,500 cars a year. In accordance with an Army directive, SDDC has taken steps to minimize the use of DFRIF general purpose (chain tiedown and COFC) flatcars; however, the volume of traffic and car characteristics mean that there will always be some use of the cars, especially during peak demand months.

QUESTION #6: If the contracting company does not have experience in working with USTRANSCOM does that lack of previous experience disqualify the contractor from this bid?

ANSWER #6: Every offeror is eligible for award as long as they meet the criteria as stated in this RFP. The Government will award a contract resulting from this solicitation to the responsible offeror whose offer conforming to the solicitation will be most advantageous to the Government, price and other factors considered.

QUESTION #7: Given the short time between the questions due date, time for US TRANSCOMM to respond, and RFP due date, can the response date be changed to August 18th to provide adequate time to adjust proposals based on the received responses?

ANSWER #7: The proposal submission deadline was extended to 3:00 pm CT, Wednesday, 9 August 2017, QUESTION #8: Section 1.3.2.1.4, Page 5, Paragraph 5.Unusual Event (UOR Unusual Occurrence Record). What is the tool and format that is to be used to create and send to the COR? Via Email in a formatted Word Doc?

ANSWER #8: There is no particular format; the emphasis is on prompt reporting of events which are likely to be of interest to senior management. A telephone call followed by an email is preferred.

QUESTION #9: Section 1.3.5.2 Page 12, Para 9 - UMLER provides quite a bit of information on railcars but what it lacks is Inspection Types / due dates, last time car had that specific type of inspection etc.

Is this information going to be provided by the SDDC in some type of excel or formatted file to the Contractor for use in assessing the equipment and its needs in these areas?

Is the SDDC going to provide a list of their ‘contracted repair shops’ and if so what type of formatted document will that be?

How many UMLER updates are performed annually?

ANSWER #9: The incumbent contractor is required to provide inspection data to the incoming contractor in a mutually agreeable format. Repair data will be provided in Association of American Railroads (AAR) Billing Repair Card (BRC) format. The list of contracted repair shops should not exceed 6 companies and will likely be provided by email. The contractor rarely has to perform any Universal Machine Language Equipment Register (UMLER) updates; nearly all Railinc involvement will be in connection with Damaged Defective Car Tracking (DDCTs) and invoicing for approved counterbilling.

QUESTION #10: Section 1.3.5.3 - How will the contractor receive the Rail Car Repair Invoice from the SDDC’s contracted repair shop with all the pertinent information required by the SDDC? (Email, Fax, other)?

ANSWER #10: The contractor will be copied by the contracted repair shop when it emails its invoice to USTRANSCOM for payment. The contracted repair shop is obligated to provide with its invoice a list of the work performed in accordance with Interchange Rule 83 (Preparation of Original Record of Repair and Billing Repair Data). The listing is provided in both .pdf and Excel formats.

QUESTION #11: Section 1.3.3.1.1, Page 6, Para 1: This section indicates a fleet of 2,500 DODX cars and 15,000 cars of other ownership. Section 1.1 indicates a fleet of 2,000 DODX cars Can you –please clarify the total number of DODX cars being monitored, estimated total number of freerunner shipments annually and the estimated total number of shipments annually.

Also, can you please provide a breakdown of this request on how many shipments, both load and empty does the SDDC perform on average monthly for the below type cars:

DODX cars Boxcars Tank cars Reefer cars Leased Cars Freerunner cars Rail Controlled cars

ANSWER #11: There are currently just under 2,000 cars in the DFRIF. The listing in Section

1.3.3.1.1 of 2,500 and 15,000 cars is meant to provide an indication of the count of unique car numbers that might be handled over the life of the contract. 1,650 of the 2,000 DFRIF cars are general purpose (chain tiedown or Container-On-Flat Car (COFC)) flatcars; the contractor will be actively involved in empty car distribution of these cars. Since some cars required for a movement are on hand at the origin, not all of the DFRIF general purpose flatcars used need to be moved empty for loading;

the percentage which need to be moved varies widely (20% to 80%) from one month to the next. The remaining car types are either tank cars in shuttle service or special purpose cars that are controlled by the using activity. The contractor’s involvement with these car types is largely limited to moving them to and from contract repair facilities. See the answer to Question #5 for additional information.

QUESTION #12: Does the SDDC want to track Freerunners until they are Released Empty or further in the reporting?

ANSWER #12: The following movements are tracked: all DODX cars (loaded and empty), all cars carrying DOD cargo, and all cars known to be moving to where they will be loaded with DOD cargo.

QUESTION #13: When shipping refrigerated cars, who is responsible to insure that these cars are fueled when needed to keep the reefer temperature controlled properly?

ANSWER #13: Normally, refrigerator cars are refueled based on automatic reporting to the shipper and periodic inspection by railroad personnel. The contractor is not usually involved with fueling or in transit servicing of the refrigerator cars.

QUESTION #14: If the SDDC operates UNIT Trains (which I have noticed in the PWS), are these trains moving in Origin / Destination – and reverse routing or are they broken apart once they reach their original destination?

ANSWER #14: The general rule, for both unit trains and loose cars, is that cars, once emptied, are retained at the unloading point until needed elsewhere. The principal exception to the general rule is when cars are unloaded at a commercial port.

QUESTION #15: Who and how are the rail waybills going to be generated?

If it is the Contractors responsibility who will be submitting the Rail BOL to:

Whom?

How?

If it is the SDDC, how will the Contractor be notified that a waybill has been generated?

ANSWER #15: The contractor’s involvement with waybilling is limited to empty DFRIF cars and is done either by using a railroad’s customer website or by email to a railroad’s customer service center.

QUESTION #16: Section 1.3.2.1.1, Page 4, Para 8 – How will the contractor be expected to receive the data from the ITV database? Please outline acceptable protocols and methods of receipt supported by the EFT.

ANSWER #16: The CLM-Y files are to be transferred via secure file transfer protocol (SFTP) directly to/from the Enterprise File Transfer (EFT) server. The naming convention of the CLMs files coming from the Rail Carriers begin with the name of the fleet for which the files were originally generated and are followed by the type of the file (i.e., CLM). They may also have a suffix to further clarify the data type (all of the files received by ISDDC should be format "Y").

The CLMs provided should maintain this naming convention when returning the QC'd/updated CLMs.

The actual IP and protocols will be provided to the contractor after award via secure manner.

We will also establish an Interface Design Document that outlines all the business rules.

QUESTION #17: Section 1.3.2.1.1, Page 4, Para 8 – What data is expected to be delivered to the ITV database? The most recently reported event for each railcar, all historical data or all data from last update date / time?

ANSWER #17: The contractor is expected to maintain a CLM database suitably accurate and complete for performing numerous requirements of the PWS. This is expected to require correction and supplementation of the raw CLMs received from the railroads. It is this corrected, supplemented, accurate, and complete CLM database that is to transmitted back to the ISDDC Enterprise File. The contractor need not provide a fuller record to the ISDDC Enterprise File than it needs to perform the PWS requirements.

QUESTION #18: Section – Atch 4 Contact & Atch 5-1 PP Svy Question: We believe The Past and Present Performance Survey states that we fill out the Offeror part and the Respondent part is filled out we believe by the Government. This is due by July 31. Am I correct about this?

ANSWER #18: Amendment 0003 was issued on 26 July 17 to clarify what is required in Volume II – Past Performance. In accordance with FAR clause 52.212-1, paragraph b, Volume II, each offeror is required to provide a past performance reference sheet (Attachment 6) for each reference submitted. Additionally, each offeror shall send out the Past Performance Cover Letter and Past and Present Performance Surveys (Attachments 5-1 and 5-2) to the Points of Contacts referenced in the Past Performance Reference Sheet(s). In accordance with Attachment 5-2, Section A shall be completed by the offeror, and the remainder of the survey shall be completed by the respondent. The surveys are due by 31 July 17.