Cambridge Systematics, Inc.

Cambridge Systematics, Inc., a for-profit transportation consulting firm headquartered in Medford, Massachusetts, provides transportation planning, policy analysis, traffic operations, and safety analytics services to federal transportation agencies almost exclusively as a prime contractor (98% of recent awards) competing on full-and-open basis with no small-business set-asides.

Cambridge Systematics operates as a dominant supplier to the Federal Highway Administration across a portfolio concentrated on highway safety, traffic incident management, and transportation system operations. The top five customer agencies account for 91% of recent awards, anchored by FHWA (454 awards, $968.9 million combined potential value), the Federal Transit Administration (33 awards, $12.4 million), and the Department of Transportation's Immediate Office of the Secretary (8 awards, $8.9 million). FHWA's dominance in both volume and dollars reflects Cambridge Systematics' multiple standing vehicles with the agency: a $94 million Blanket Purchase Agreement for technical research and program management (established March 2022, ultimate completion January 2023 with ongoing task order activity); a $10 million multiple-award Indefinite Delivery Contract awarded July 2021; and an older indefinite delivery vehicle (DTFH6106D00004) carrying 81 task orders and $35.4 million in combined potential value. Additional customer concentration includes the Federal Transit Administration through a $2.35 million BPA for land use and economic development oversight (January 2022 through January 2027) and a newer $4.25 million single-award BPA for general support services (September 2024 through September 2029). Representative work under these vehicles includes a $870,259 task order for safe system solutions in highway safety improvement, $612,930 for Justice40 Initiative implementation support, and $578,492 for crowdsourcing and operations advancement initiatives — all FHWA domain work spanning firm fixed-price, time-and-materials, and labor-hour pricing structures.

Cambridge Systematics holds a GSA Multiple Award Schedule contract (ceiling $2.6 million, through August 2027) with 25 labor categories spanning project assistants at $73.52 per hour through senior advisors at $458.34 per hour, with education requirements ranging from bachelor's to master's degrees and no security-cleared roles. Recent civilian-side work includes a $454,205 modification on a Build America Bureau Market Demand Advisory Services indefinite delivery contract (awarded September 2024, ultimate completion September 2029) for Brightline West High-Speed Intercity Passenger Rail market demand analysis, and multiple statutory assessment calls from the Federal Transit Administration for Capital Improvement Grant project economic development effects (values ranging from $221,854 to $229,619 per call). Activity has grown modestly over recent years — 19 awards in 2022 rising to 14 in 2024, then declining to 5 in 2025 and 3 in 2026 — reflecting a shift in award timing or customer discretion rather than overall competitive decline. Recompete pressure remains light; only 8 awards with combined potential value of $2.4 million reach ultimate completion within the next twenty-four months.

SCI-reported invoicing across federal service contracts above the $150,000 threshold totaled $8.3 million over FY2022–FY2024 (FY2022: $5.1 million across 12.4 FTEs; FY2023: $2.2 million across 3.0 FTEs; FY2024: $921 thousand across 1.0 FTEs), indicating a compressed federal services footprint relative to the vendor's $1.04 billion combined potential value across the full award portfolio — a pattern reflecting the mix of task orders, BPA calls, and IDIQs that deliver revenue across time rather than concentration in a single fiscal year. Government-paid hourly rates on SCI prime contracts ran a median of $275.77 per hour, with the 10th percentile at $152.39 per hour and the 90th percentile at $1,633.96 per hour. Across SCI-reportable prime contracts, subcontractors performed on average 31% of total contractor hours, with 38 named subcontractors cited across the vendor's prime service work — indicating material reliance on subs to staff delivery. Named sub primes include ICF Incorporated (TSMO evaluation and research support under FHWA Operations V BPA, February 2025) and Deloitte Financial Advisory Services (economic evaluation of highway investment needs and HERS programming support, November 2022).

Cambridge Systematics also acts as a sub-recipient and sub-contractor on federal grant work, accepting sub-awards from the National Academy of Sciences (six awards spanning freight safety integration, carbon reduction metrics, TSMO communications playbooks, climate resilience, and automated driving systems, valued individually below $1 million), the University of Washington (Complete Trip ITS4US Deployment Phases 2 & 3, October 2025), the Colorado Department of Transportation (Traffic Records Coordinator, September 2025), and unidentified Orange County-based grantees for TRANSAM transit data software and open trip planner maintenance (March and April 2024). The vendor maintains a named subsidiary, Locus, Inc., self-certified as a Small Disadvantaged Business and structured as a for-profit organization, though no sub-award or prime contract activity is attributed to Locus in the source material.