FY'26 Licenses to Operate NUCARS Software

The U.S. Department of Transportation's John A. Volpe National Transportation Systems Center, in support of the Federal Railroad Administration, is procuring the renewal of two licenses to operate NUCARS software. NUCARS is a proprietary simulation package owned by the Association of American Railroads and is the only validated software capable of predicting the nonlinear dynamic response of North American railroad vehicles to specified track conditions. The Volpe Center requires this software to access results from decades of past simulation work and to support ongoing rail dynamics studies. The procurement is justified as a sole source acquisition under the "Only One Responsible Source" criterion, as alternative software packages including SIMPACK, VAMPIRE, and VI-Rail are incompatible with the Government's existing vehicle models and accumulated simulation data. Market research conducted in December 2025 confirmed that conversion to alternative software would require hundreds of labor hours and tens of thousands of dollars in additional costs, creating significant project disruption. The pre-solicitation notice was posted on January 22, 2026, with a due date of January 28, 2026.

This procurement carries no small business set-aside designation and is intended for award to Transportation Technology Center, Inc., DBA MxV Rail Software Products, the sole provider of NUCARS licenses. The NAICS classification is 541519 (Other Computer Related Services) with a small business size standard of $30.0 million, and the PSC category is 7A21 (IT and Telecom - Business Application Software). While specific award values are not disclosed in the pre-solicitation notice, the procurement represents a renewal of existing licenses for fiscal year 2026. The contract structure and budget details will be outlined in the forthcoming solicitation document, which interested parties should monitor given the compressed timeline between the pre-solicitation posting and the stated due date.