Equip Rental Offset Drill w/Op / D-7 REBID

The Commonwealth of Kentucky Transportation Cabinet, Division of Purchases, on behalf of District 7/Department of Highways, is soliciting bids for equipment rental services through a Request for Bid (RFB) process. The procurement seeks a qualified vendor to provide a modified rotary drill (truck or track mounted) with operator(s) capable of drilling 9-5/8 inch minimum diameter holes and installing railroad steel up to 40 feet in length weighing 130 pounds per linear yard minimum, with offset configuration requiring a minimum 8-foot reach from the carrier vehicle and capability to drill through embankment material into bedrock. The solicitation encompasses seven line items including drill rental with operator, traffic control, railroad steel provision, cribbing installation, excavation, backfill, and associated labor and materials, with pricing structured on a per-linear-foot basis for drilled railroad rails, per man-hour for traffic control, per cubic yard for excavation and backfill, and per square foot for cribbing installation. The vendor must maintain a minimum production rate of 800 linear feet of installed rails per 10-hour workday, and liquidated damages of one percent per day will be assessed for failure to meet contracted completion dates. The bid closing date is March 21, 2025, at 1:30 p.m. Eastern Time, with electronic submission required through the Kentucky Vendor Self Service system, tentative award date of April 1, 2025, and an initial contract period running through March 31, 2026, with four optional one-year renewal periods available. Evaluation uses a best-value ranking approach allocating 95 points to price and 5 points to response time, and no bidders' conference is scheduled as this is a rebid of a previous solicitation.

Kentucky resident bidder preferences and qualified bidder preferences may apply to this procurement, and all required affidavits regarding resident status, campaign finance compliance, illegal immigrant utilization, and subcontractor compliance must accompany bid submissions. The contractor must obtain and maintain general liability insurance of $1,000,000 per occurrence and Kentucky workers' compensation coverage as mandatory qualifications. Vendors must respond through the Kentucky Vendor Self Service (VSS) platform following the procedural requirements outlined in the submission guide, which includes selecting applicable line items, entering bid prices, uploading supporting documentation (limited to ten files per upload session with maximum 65,000 KB per document), and completing all mandatory response page steps to achieve "Accepted" status for successful submission. No incumbent vendor or existing contractor information is identified in this rebid solicitation, and no specific budget range or award value is disclosed in the procurement documents. Vendors experiencing submission issues should contact the Customer Resource Center help desk at Finance.CRCGroup@ky.gov, by phone at 502-564-9641, or toll-free at 877-973-4357.