Request for Information (RFI)/Industry Feedback on Draft Performance Work Statement for Parametric Railway Line Capacity Model 693JJ625R000002

Purpose: The Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) is seeking industry review and comment on a draft Parametric Railway Line Capacity Model (PRLC) Performance Work Statement (PWS) prior to the issuance of any formal solicitation. The government may incorporate into the final version of the PWS any information or comments resulting from this request that is determined to be useful. Responses to this Request for Information (RFI) are not considered offers and cannot be accepted by the Government to form a binding contract. Industry is requested to review the attached Draft PWS and provide comments/feedback that will assist the FRA in refining its requirement. Respondents should not submit any proprietary information when responding to this RFI. Respondents are encouraged to review the draft PWS, and submit any comments or questions that may be useful for this requirement. All comments/questions will be evaluated and the draft PWS will be amended accordingly to reflect any changes FRA deems necessary to make. Background: Since the 1975 publication of Federal Rail Administration s (FRA) Parametric Analysis of Railway Line Capacity Final Report , parametric railroad capacity models have seen sporadic use throughout the North American railroad industry as a tool to support both short-term and long-term network, traffic, and capital planning. While some individual railroads have developed and maintained propriety parametric models for their own internal use, the publicly available 1975 FRA model, which provided the initial conceptual framework for this approach to capacity analysis, has become largely obsolete due to major changes that have occurred over the past 50 years including railroad operating practices, traffic types, physical plant characteristics, and capacity utilization. During that same period, detailed railroad operations simulation emerged as the dominant tool for railroad capacity analysis. FRA has been a major proponent for the use of operations simulation an essential means of assessing the efficacy of proposed changes to railroad operations and infrastructure. Since most railway improvements require careful consideration of railway line capacity and operating performance, the need for an expanded set of tools for railroad capacity analysis has grown more important. Objectives: The U.S. Department of Transportation s Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) RRD-22 seeks to develop a new Parametric Railway Line Capacity Model (PRLCM) which, like the 1975 model, would be made publicly available for use by both the railroad industry and by others with an interest in railroad capacity analysis (such as sponsors of potential railroad improvement projects). The first step towards this objective is to develop the parametric railway line capacity model and test it prior to undertaking the project to publicly launch the tool. FRA believes that a new parametric capacity model would have the potential to serve as an important adjunct to existing railroad operations simulation tools and could find application in: high-level operations analysis that is performed as part of early project feasibility studies, regional intercity passenger rail planning, and as an aid in developing hypotheses for operating and infrastructure changes for subsequent evaluation using operations simulation. Like the 1975 model, development of a new parametric capacity model would focus on an analytical examination of key factors affecting railway line capacity to: Determine the relative magnitude of the impact of varying key parameters such as track and signal system configuration and train operating policy in terms of their effect on capacity; and Develop a parametric model for general application to railroad capacity analysis. As was the case in the development of the 1975 model, a key element of a new parametric model would be the use of a railroad operations simulation model to examine different combinations of track, signal, and train configurations and operating practices, with the resulting estimates of operating performance being used as the basis for a regression-based approach to establish the mathematically continuous relationships between various parameters and line capacity. Some of these relationships had only been previously addressed as discrete variables. In addition to reflecting the contemporary characteristics of North American railroad operating practices, infrastructure, and traffic, the development of a new parametric capacity model would present the opportunity to: 1) incorporate advances in analytical techniques, 2) address areas of future research identified during the development of the 1975 model, and 3) address topics that were unable to be addressed (or perhaps even contemplated) as part of the 1975 model due to the limitations of the analytical tools available at the time. Further, there is an opportunity to develop a software implementation of the parametric model, to allow for its user-friendly application by practitioners. No such implementation was made available for the 1975 model. Anticipated Budget: $950,000 to $1M. NAICS: 541330 Information Requested: Interested offerors are encouraged to review the attached Draft PWS and provide comments/feedback to assist the Government in refining its requirement. Specifically, the Government is interested in feedback regarding the following: Please provide your feedback regarding the clarity of the requirements and stated outcomes. Are the tasks, activities, and objectives clearly defined and comprehensive? Are there any ambiguities or omissions? Please provide your assessment of the anticipated budget. What do you view as the greatest risk to the completion of the project? How do you envision the team composition and the division of work required to complete the project? Based on the PWS, what contract type (e.g., firm-fixed-price, time-and-materials) would be most appropriate for this requirement and why? Along with your response to the above questions please include: Name, address, point of contact (telephone number and email address), CAGE Code, and UEI. Does your firm currently provide these services under an existing contract such as an Indefinite Delivery Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) or Government-Wide Acquisition Contract? If so, please provide the contract number, point of contact name/number, and managing agency (e.g., Air Force, DoD, GSA). Specify your business type based upon NAICS 541330. Specify all that apply. __ Large Business __ Small Business __ Small Disadvantaged Business (SDB) __ 8(a) __ HUBZone __ Woman Owned Small Business (WOSB) __ Veteran-Owned Small Business (VOSB) __ Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business SDVOSB) Is the NAICS 541330 code appropriate for this scope of work? If you determine it to be inappropriate, what NAICS code would be appropriate and why? Would your organization consider prime contracting for this project? If so, would you propose as a prime with subcontractors or as a joint venture with other firm(s)? Please identify the business size of your company, as well as, your team members or joint venture firms (e.g., small or other than small). If applicable, provide a brief overview of the proposed team composition that depicts how the work would be divided up amongst the team/JV members. Interested offerors are encouraged to submit questions/feedback for Government review. The intent of obtaining questions/feedback on the PWS is to further assist industry when proposing on the PWS and to streamline the solicitation process. The Government will not post official responses to the questions/feedback but they will be reviewed by the Government. If questions/answers are provided the details will be shared to all respondents.

Purpose: The Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) is seeking industry review and comment on a draft Parametric Railway Line Capacity Model (PRLC) Performance Work Statement (PWS) prior to the issuance of any formal solicitation. The government may incorporate into the final version of the PWS any information or comments resulting from this request that is determined to be useful. Responses to this Request for Information (RFI) are not considered offers and cannot be accepted by the Government to form a binding contract. Industry is requested to review the attached Draft PWS and provide comments/feedback that will assist the FRA in refining its requirement. Respondents should not submit any proprietary information when responding to this RFI. Respondents are encouraged to review the draft PWS, and submit any comments or questions that may be useful for this requirement. All comments/questions will be evaluated and the draft PWS will be amended accordingly to reflect any changes FRA deems necessary to make. Background: Since the 1975 publication of Federal Rail Administration s (FRA) Parametric Analysis of Railway Line Capacity Final Report , parametric railroad capacity models have seen sporadic use throughout the North American railroad industry as a tool to support both short-term and long-term network, traffic, and capital planning. While some individual railroads have developed and maintained propriety parametric models for their own internal use, the publicly available 1975 FRA model, which provided the initial conceptual framework for this approach to capacity analysis, has become largely obsolete due to major changes that have occurred over the past 50 years including railroad operating practices, traffic types, physical plant characteristics, and capacity utilization. During that same period, detailed railroad operations simulation emerged as the dominant tool for railroad capacity analysis. FRA has been a major proponent for the use of operations simulation an essential means of assessing the efficacy of proposed changes to railroad operations and infrastructure. Since most railway improvements require careful consideration of railway line capacity and operating performance, the need for an expanded set of tools for railroad capacity analysis has grown more important. Objectives: The U.S. Department of Transportation s Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) RRD-22 seeks to develop a new Parametric Railway Line Capacity Model (PRLCM) which, like the 1975 model, would be made publicly available for use by both the railroad industry and by others with an interest in railroad capacity analysis (such as sponsors of potential railroad improvement projects). The first step towards this objective is to develop the parametric railway line capacity model and test it prior to undertaking the project to publicly launch the tool. FRA believes that a new parametric capacity model would have the potential to serve as an important adjunct to existing railroad operations simulation tools and could find application in: high-level operations analysis that is performed as part of early project feasibility studies, regional intercity passenger rail planning, and as an aid in developing hypotheses for operating and infrastructure changes for subsequent evaluation using operations simulation. Like the 1975 model, development of a new parametric capacity model would focus on an analytical examination of key factors affecting railway line capacity to: Determine the relative magnitude of the impact of varying key parameters such as track and signal system configuration and train operating policy in terms of their effect on capacity; and Develop a parametric model for general application to railroad capacity analysis. As was the case in the development of the 1975 model, a key element of a new parametric model would be the use of a railroad operations simulation model to examine different combinations of track, signal, and train configurations and operating practices, with the resulting estimates of operating performance being used as the basis for a regression-based approach to establish the mathematically continuous relationships between various parameters and line capacity. Some of these relationships had only been previously addressed as discrete variables. In addition to reflecting the contemporary characteristics of North American railroad operating practices, infrastructure, and traffic, the development of a new parametric capacity model would present the opportunity to: 1) incorporate advances in analytical techniques, 2) address areas of future research identified during the development of the 1975 model, and 3) address topics that were unable to be addressed (or perhaps even contemplated) as part of the 1975 model due to the limitations of the analytical tools available at the time. Further, there is an opportunity to develop a software implementation of the parametric model, to allow for its user-friendly application by practitioners. No such implementation was made available for the 1975 model. Anticipated Budget: $950,000 to $1M. NAICS: 541330 Information Requested: Interested offerors are encouraged to review the attached Draft PWS and provide comments/feedback to assist the Government in refining its requirement. Specifically, the Government is interested in feedback regarding the following: Please provide your feedback regarding the clarity of the requirements and stated outcomes. Are the tasks, activities, and objectives clearly defined and comprehensive? Are there any ambiguities or omissions? Please provide your assessment of the anticipated budget. What do you view as the greatest risk to the completion of the project? How do you envision the team composition and the division of work required to complete the project? Based on the PWS, what contract type (e.g., firm-fixed-price, time-and-materials) would be most appropriate for this requirement and why? Along with your response to the above questions please include: Name, address, point of contact (telephone number and email address), CAGE Code, and UEI. Does your firm currently provide these services under an existing contract such as an Indefinite Delivery Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) or Government-Wide Acquisition Contract? If so, please provide the contract number, point of contact name/number, and managing agency (e.g., Air Force, DoD, GSA). Specify your business type based upon NAICS 541330. Specify all that apply. __ Large Business __ Small Business __ Small Disadvantaged Business (SDB) __ 8(a) __ HUBZone __ Woman Owned Small Business (WOSB) __ Veteran-Owned Small Business (VOSB) __ Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business SDVOSB) Is the NAICS 541330 code appropriate for this scope of work? If you determine it to be inappropriate, what NAICS code would be appropriate and why? Would your organization consider prime contracting for this project? If so, would you propose as a prime with subcontractors or as a joint venture with other firm(s)? Please identify the business size of your company, as well as, your team members or joint venture firms (e.g., small or other than small). If applicable, provide a brief overview of the proposed team composition that depicts how the work would be divided up amongst the team/JV members. Interested offerors are encouraged to submit questions/feedback for Government review. The intent of obtaining questions/feedback on the PWS is to further assist industry when proposing on the PWS and to streamline the solicitation process. The Government will not post official responses to the questions/feedback but they will be reviewed by the Government. If questions/answers are provided the details will be shared to all respondents.