RFI 107-20 Elevator Screens.docx

REQUEST FOR INFORMATION

{Elevator Digital Signage} RFI #107-20 / COMMBUYS Bid # 21-1206-40000-40000-52306

MASSACHUSETTS BAY TRANSPORTATION AUTHORITY

{Elevator Digital Signage}

REQUEST FOR INFORMATION 107-20

Commbuys Bid # 21-1206-40000-40000-53206

Contact Person:

Name: Jimmy Moynihan Title: Sourcing Executive Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority 10 Park Plaza, Room 2810 Boston, MA 02116 Phone: 617-222-1608 JMoynihan@mbta.com

Please Note: This is a single document associated with a complete Bid (also referred to as Solicitation) that can be found on www.COMMBUYS.com. All Bidders are responsible for reviewing and adhering to all information, forms and requirements for the entire Bid, which are all incorporated into the Bid. Bidders may also contact the COMMBUYS Helpdesk at COMMBUYS@state.ma.us or the COMMBUYS Helpline at 1-888-MA-STATE. The Helpline is staffed from 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM Monday through Friday Eastern Standard or Daylight time, as applicable, except on federal, state and Suffolk county holidays.

ISSUE DATE:8/14/2020

Fax Number

1. Description or Purpose of Procurement:

An RFI in service of a new digital signage concept that we call “Elevator Screens.”

Background & Context The MBTA owns and operates ~190 elevators across our system. For elevator-dependent riders—people in mobility devices, older adults, and more—these are a critical part of our transit infrastructure: an out-of-service elevator can be a barrier to safe, convenient, and independent mobility.

But elevators do go out-of-service for any number of reasons and, when they do, getting information to riders about the outage and their alternative paths of travel is a challenge. We currently have multiple standard operating procedures that call for putting up and taking down paper notices (like this one) on elevators whenever one goes out of service. It takes a tremendous amount of paper, and a tremendous amount of time—every single day. And we know that these notices are easy to overlook—especially when they proliferate and stay up too long.

Our Objective The MBTA would like to pilot the idea of replacing these paper notices with internet-connected LCD screens. By putting real-time information about elevators that are out-of-service on these screens, we believe that we can:

· Support elevator-dependent riders who have to navigate frequent outages; and

· Eliminate the burden of putting up and taking down paper notices.

This is a to-scale rendering of the concept, at one of our elevator entrances at Haymarket. We have already begun an engineering-design project, to determine the feasibility and cost of installing a screen at each elevator entrance. In doing so, we have determined that a 19’’ screen in a portrait orientation is the largest screen that could reasonably fit. (For example, see this photo of an elevator entrance at Forest Hills station and this accompanying schematic. We have done this exercise for a total of 70 elevator entrances—23 elevators at six stations.)

We will do the user research, UX/UI design, and software engineering to develop the web-application that displays information on these screens. We will also perform the installation of the screen at each location.

What we’re looking for, with this RFI, is information about the feasibility and cost of the screen itself.

What We’re Looking For In the following section, we describe our ideal solution for this screen. After that, we suggest technical specifications that we think follow from that solution.

DESIRED SOLUTION

A sealed, waterproof, vandalism-protected, outdoor-rated 19’’ LCD screen—in standard resolution and aspect ratio—that can display a live-updating HTML5 web-application…

· That is sufficiently bright, depending on whether it’s mounted indoors or outdoors, and whose brightness is responsive to ambient light sensing;

· With 4G cellular connectivity (preferably through Verizon), with either 5G compatibility or the ability to upgrade to 5G in the future;

· With the ability to play audio;

· That is wall-mounted;

· With 99.99% uptime in the Boston area in an outdoor location;

· Whose operating parameters, including the URLs from which to display visual and audio content, we can access and edit remotely, securely, and programmatically (i.e., we should be able to reboot the screen; we should be able to log health-monitoring parameters to our own app; etc.);

· With a minimum of a five-year warranty period;

· With a built-in Bluetooth Low-Energy (BLE) beacon that can communicate over Bluetooth with riders’ phones.

The last item should be considered a “nice-to-have” feature, not a “need-to-have” feature.

SUGGESTED TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS

Indoor: 750-1,000 cd/m2 (nits) Both: ambient light sensing

Operating Temp: -30°C - 50°C

Bluetooth-capable

Secure ability to remotely reboot Secure ability to reset or edit operating parameters Secure read/write API access to all operating parameters

Alternative: If SOC is not proposed, then an external media player along with all associated cabling, environmental and vandalism protection must have the ability to render and display a live HTML5 web-page as output to the display’s HDMI input.

Requested Information We understand that digital signage manufacturers do not have outdoor-rated 19’’ screens in their product lineups, ready to be purchased off-the-shelf. We want to know, however, whether such a product can be made for us, for the use-case described above.

Please respond to the following questions:

· Can your company, whether independently or in partnership with others, deliver a product that meets the objectives and specifications described above? If you disagree with any of the technical specifications, and believe that you have a different way of meeting the overall goals, please feel free to say so in your response.

· What is the timeline for delivering such a product?

· What would be the unit cost of such a product? Please break your costs down in two ways:

· By line item: hardware, warranty

· By volume: does the unit cost change if we purchase 25 units? 50 units? 100 units?

· Has your company delivered any projects similar to this one?

Finally, with respect to maintenance of digital signage, our preferred approach has been to:

· Purchase hardware warranties and spare units from the signage manufacturer and/or systems integrator; and

· Contract directly with a local electrician to perform maintenance and replacement tasks.

Please feel free to respond to this approach, generally, and suggest whether you think it would or would not work for a pilot project of “elevator screens.”

2. Applicable Procurement Law

Executive Branch Goods and Services

3. Estimated Procurement Calendar

Bidders are required to monitor COMMBUYS for changes to the procurement calendar for this Bid.

a. Online Questions (Bid Q&A) Written Questions must be entered by pressing the “Bid Q&A” tab for the Bid in COMMBUYS no later than the “Online Questions Due” date and time indicated in the Estimated Procurement Calendar (above). The issuing department reserves the right not to respond to questions submitted after this date. It is the Bidder’s responsibility to verify receipt of questions.

It is the responsibility of the prospective Bidder and awarded Contractor to maintain an active registration in COMMBUYS and to keep current the email address of the Bidder’s contact person and prospective contract manager, if awarded a contract, and to monitor that email inbox for communications from the Purchasing Department, including requests for clarification. The Purchasing Department and the Commonwealth assume no responsibility if a prospective Bidder’s/awarded Contractor’s designated email address is not current, or if technical problems, including those with the prospective Bidder’s/awarded Contractor’s computer, network or internet service provider (ISP) cause email communications sent to/from the prospective Bidder/Awarded contractor and the Purchasing Department to be lost or rejected by any means including email or spam filtering.

Written Responses to Questions will be released on or about the “Responses to Questions Posted Online” date indicated in the Estimated Procurement Calendar (above).

(Written questions and responses will be posted on the Bid Q&A Tab for this Bid in COMMBUYS.)

b. Quotes (Bid Responses) Deadline (Bid Opening Date/Time) See the Quotes (Bid Responses) Deadline (Bid Opening) Date and Time indicated in the Estimated Procurement Calendar (above).

The above attachments are available as part of the Bid record on COMMBUYS (WWW.COMMBUYS.COM).

4. RFI Attachments Appendix A: Electronic Quote Submission Instructions [http://www.mass.gov/anf/docs/osd/forms/instructions-for-vendors-responding-to-bids.docx]