RFP513 - 2026-2027 Atlanta Regional Transit On-Board Survey

The Atlanta Regional Commission (ARC) has issued Request for Proposals (RFP) 513 for the administration of a 2026-2027 Regional Transit On-Board Survey designed to develop a comprehensive transit travel behavior database supporting the Atlanta Metropolitan Region's travel demand forecasting model. The procurement seeks a qualified contractor to conduct an activity-based survey of approximately 20,000 transit riders representing 10 percent of daily ridership across five regional transit operators: MARTA, ATL Xpress, CobbLinc, Connect Douglas, and Ride Gwinnett, spanning the 21-county Atlanta Metropolitan Planning Organization modeling region. The scope encompasses nine major tasks including project management and work planning, quality assurance and quality control, survey design and sampling, survey instrumentation and training, pre-test and pilot testing, on-board survey administration via tablet PC technology, data processing and weighting, transit data analytics and storytelling, and seamless data pipeline development for integration into ARC's ActivitySim and STOPS travel demand models. Deliverables must include survey data files with household socio-economic characteristics, trip purpose information, origin-destination details, access and egress modes, safety perception data, interactive dashboards, static reports, and Python-based data integration using formats such as CSV, JSON, and XML. The evaluation criteria are weighted as follows: extensive experience in transit data requirements for travel model estimation (20 percent), working knowledge of statistically-based sample survey research techniques (20 percent), experience training and managing data collection personnel using tablet technology (20 percent), survey data editing and quality control capabilities (25 percent), and staff qualifications and project schedule compliance (15 percent). Questions must be submitted by April 10, 2026 at 4:00 p.m. EST with responses due by April 17, 2026, proposals are due April 30, 2026 at 4:00 p.m. EST through the ARC procurement website, interviews are scheduled for the week of May 17, 2026, contract award is anticipated in early June 2026, and work commences July 15, 2026 and concludes December 31, 2027.

The RFP does not identify specific set-aside designations for disadvantaged enterprises, though all contractors must comply with federal Title VI civil rights provisions and demonstrate Disadvantaged Business Enterprise (DBE) utilization in accordance with applicable federal requirements. The procurement is open to qualified firms with no identified incumbent vendors or current contractors specified in the solicitation materials. The successful contractor must integrate deliverables with ARC's existing ActivitySim and STOPS travel demand models using Python-based approaches and ensure all survey materials, documentation, and datasets remain the property of ARC. The contractor is responsible for operational coordination with transit operators, handling security and permitting requirements across multiple transit systems, and ensuring privacy and anonymization of survey respondents. The estimated total project budget is approximately $1.6 million, allocated as $400,000 in 2026 and $1.2 million in 2027, with contract award contingent upon ARC receiving adequate funding from the Georgia Department of Transportation. ARC reserves the right to award all or part of the available funds and may award the contract to one or more firms, with all proposals becoming public records under Georgia's Open Records law.