TSO-10 Statement of Objectives (SOO)_RFI .docx

STATEMENT OF OBJECTIVES (SOO)

I. Purpose

The Federal Transit Administration (FTA) within the United States (U.S.) Department of Transportation is charged with administering the National Public Transportation Safety Program (Safety Program) to improve the safety of public transportation systems that receive federal financial assistance under 49 U.S.C. chapter 53.

The FTA has adopted the methods and principles of Safety Management Systems (SMS) as the foundation of the Safety Program. SMS implementation will improve public transportation safety and provide transit agencies with a structure for understanding and addressing safety risk through proactive and timely organizational decision-making.

FTA’s Office of System Safety (TSO-10) within the Office of Transit Safety and Oversight (TSO) is responsible for supporting the transit industry in fully implementing SMS and managing and implementing FTA’s internal SMS processes. To support these efforts, TSO-10 is seeking contractor support in the following areas:

1. Policy Development and Implementation

2. Safety Risk Management Process Implementation

3. Data Collection, Analysis, and Reporting

4. Training Design, Development, and Delivery

5. Technical Assistance Development and Delivery

6. Program Evaluation

Expected benefits from the support provided in the six program areas listed above include the following:

· Improved transit industry safety performance, including a reduction in safety events, fatalities, and injuries.

· Implementation of statutory requirements for public transportation safety and increased understanding throughout the public transportation industry of FTA’s SMS regulatory and safety oversight framework;

· Development and implementation of programs that support the transit industry’s effective adoption of SMS;

· Assistance in the prioritization of Federal, State, and local resources for transit safety and in the prioritization of FTA activities based on the analysis of data and evaluation of safety risk;

· Implementation of the safety risk management program for identifying and mitigating transit industry safety risk; and

· Improved information sharing and coordination with the transit industry.

II. Mission

FTA’s core mission is to improve public transportation for America’s communities. FTA functions through a Washington, D.C. headquarters and 10 regional offices that assist transit agencies across the United States. The Office of System Safety within FTA’s Office of Transit Safety and Oversight (TSO) works to continuously improve transit safety through the implementation of SMS methods and principles.

III. Period and Place of Performance

The anticipated period of performance will be one 12-month base period and four 12-month option periods.

The contractor shall furnish necessary facilities to undertake the performance objectives. The work shall be performed at the contractor’s site except for meetings, workshops or conferences held outside the contractor’s site, for which travel will be specified ahead of time, and agreed upon with the Contracting Officer’s Representative (COR).

IV. Background

Pursuant to 49 U.S.C. § 5329, the U.S. DOT, FTA is charged with administering the Safety Program to improve the safety of public transportation systems that receive Federal financial assistance under 49 U.S.C. chapter 53. FTA adopted the methods and principles of SMS as the foundation of the Safety Program. An SMS is a formal, top-down, organization-wide data-driven approach to managing safety risk and assuring the effectiveness of safety risk mitigations. SMS includes systematic procedures, practices and policies for managing safety hazards and risk and are intended to support transit agency leadership in the prioritization and allocation of resources.

FTA supports the transit industry’s implementation of SMS by providing guidance, training, and technical assistance related to the Public Transportation Agency Safety Plan (PTASP) regulation at 49 Code of Federal Regulation (CFR) Part 673. Formal SMS programs are comprised of:

· Safety Management Policy: The foundation of an agency’s SMS. This policy includes information on developing and carrying out all other SMS elements.

· Safety Risk Management (SRM): Processes for identifying safety hazards and analyzing, assessing, and mitigating safety risk.

· Safety Assurance: Processes within a transit agency’s SMS to ensure the effective implementation of safety risk mitigations and attainment of safety objectives through the collection, analysis, and assessment of information.

· Safety Promotion: The component of SMS that includes training and communication to enable SMS activities.

In addition, internally, FTA is implementing data and risk-based SMS processes to identify, analyze, prioritize, and inform decision-making on prioritizing resources towards improving transit safety.

V. Performance Objectives

This SOO is intended to obtain support for the mission of FTA’s Office of System Safety in implementing its policy, regulatory, and technical assistance activities, assessing and mitigating safety risk, and providing training, tools and outreach to promote safety performance improvements.

The Office of System Safety’s program activities include extensive writing which must be accomplished while adhering to requirements of the Plain Writing Act of 2010. The highest quality of professional writing is required for all program components.

All program activities require experience and expertise in working with FTA’s established software platforms, including Microsoft Office Suite and SharePoint. Proficiency with specialty software, as outlined below, is also required to support specific program components.

The Office of System Safety is seeking contractor support for the following six program components:

1. Policy Development and Implementation

The contractor will support the Office of System Safety in the development and implementation of data driven and risk-based policies governing transit safety, including, but not limited to the analysis of statutory requirements and legislative proposals; formulation of policy papers, memorandums, and briefing documents; development of regulations and performance-based standards; and development of advice and recommendations.

2. Safety Risk Management

The contractor will support the Office of System Safety through the management and implementation of FTA’s Safety Risk Management (SRM) process, including performing technical data analysis to support risk assessments of identified safety issues; preparing reports and briefing materials; managing the SRM working group; developing and managing the annual FTA SRM workplan; and managing, documenting, and reporting progress regarding the work plan.

The contractor will provide support by applying its expertise in estimating the likelihood and severity of the potential consequences of safety hazards, together with an assessment of the significance of the results. This includes risk estimation and risk evaluation. The contractor will need extensive knowledge and experience in qualitative and quantitative risk assessment; knowledge of best practices in risk assessments; and experience in implementing common hazard analysis tools such as Preliminary Hazard Analysis, the Failure Modes Effects (and Criticality) Analysis, System and Sub-System Hazard Analysis, Operating Hazard Analysis, Job Hazard Analysis, Bowtie, Structured What If Technique, Hazard and Operability Study, the Fishbone Cause-and-Effect Diagram, Systems Theoretic Process Analysis, and deductive failure analyses tools such as Fault Tree Analysis and Event Tree Analysis. The contractor must also understand possible pitfalls of risk assessment methods and support the selection of appropriate methods.

3. Data Collection, Analysis & Reporting

The contractor will support the Office of System Safety’s policy and SRM efforts through the collection, validation, analysis, assessment and presentation of data such as dashboards, reporting, and dynamic visualizations from various sources. Data will be collected from the National Transit Database (NTD), State Safety Oversight Agencies, and other approved sources. In addition to program and project management, the contractor must demonstrate the ability to conduct complex analyses of transit safety data, and should have relevant subject-matter expertise related to the management and operations of transit systems.

The contractor will use FTA-approved software, data, and processes. The contractor will need familiarity with databases (e.g., Appian or MySQL) and Structured Query Language (SQL), and experience with Jira. Extensive experience is required in “extract, transform and load” (ETL) processes, identifying issues and validating data conflicts (e.g., in terms of totals, timestamps, counts, or other metrics), and aggregating data across disparate sources in various formats.

Extensive experience is also required in data wrangling, including but not limited to importing, cleaning, exporting, and processing data with varying levels of complexity; flat file familiarity, such as NTD flat files https://www.transit.dot.gov/ntd/ntd-data; combining flat files with raw SQL data server dumps; business intelligence software/dashboards; and extensive experience with Microsoft Office Excel formulas and tools.

4. Training Design, Development and Delivery

The contractor will support the Office of System Safety by designing, developing, delivering, and evaluating transit safety courses and learning products. Contractor responsibilities will include but are not limited to conducting: content analysis, training needs analysis, competency development and mapping, training and education product design and development, Learning Management System administration, virtual instructor-led course delivery, development of proposed industry standard training practices, and learning product evaluation.

Training content analysis will involve the review of course content to align with FTA safety regulations and technical assistance. Training needs analysis will involve the alignment of FTA safety requirements, gap analysis, and identification of training needs to inform an appropriate training intervention. Training and education product design and development will involve the review, revision, and development of appropriate learning interventions based on learner-centered approaches.

Learning Management System administration will involve the tracking, reporting, and management of participant registrations and records, and eLearning product hosting. Competency model development and mapping will involve the identification of the knowledge, skills, and abilities of job roles. Virtual instructor-led course delivery will involve the use of skilled instructors to deliver learner-centered courses based on adult learning principles. Learning product evaluation will involve the use of both formative and summative evaluation methods to inform the improvement of existing learning interventions and future products based on learning needs.

5. Technical Assistance Development and Delivery

The contractor will support the Office of System Safety by providing safety promotion and technical assistance services, including activities such as the coordination of stakeholder peer exchange activities, design and implementation of webinars, and the development of outreach and communication materials and documents. This includes the development of templates, implementation guides, short videos, checklists, and other technical support to assist transit stakeholders in fulfilling FTA safety requirements. The contractor must have expertise in graphic design and printing, and proficiency with associated software packages (e.g., Adobe Creative), to develop effective graphics and other visual products that support external communications regarding Office of System Safety programs.

6. Program Evaluation

The contractor will support the Office of System Safety in the effective implementation of safety risk mitigations and attainment of safety objectives through the collection, analysis, and assessment of information. Evaluation support will include measuring and monitoring the effectiveness and efficiency of projects, programs and policies; recommending improvements or better alternatives; and identifying any unintended outcomes.

The contractor will support efforts to design and collect program evaluation data through surveys, requests for information and other tools to gather stakeholder feedback, while adhering to the Paperwork Reduction Act and other requirements. The contractor may be asked to use other types and sources of data to support evaluation efforts.

Additional reference information about program components and support activities can be obtained on the websites for the Office of System Safety and National Transit Database.