Continuation of Rolling Stock Fire Safety Engineering Support

Notice of Intent to Issue a Sole Source Contract to Jensen Hughes for continuation of Fire Safety research. The United States Department of Transportation, Federal Railroad Administration (FRA), Office of Acquisition Services, under the authority of the Federal Acquisition Regulations (FAR) 6.302-1 - Only One Responsible Source, intends to issue a sole source contract to JENSEN HUGHES for continuation of Fire Safety research, - Fire Safety II Research. The period of performance will be 18 months. The sole source justification is as follows: JENSEN HUGES is uniquely qualified to conduct this research because of the progress made under the Volpe research contract that will be continued here. In 2015, the FRA with support of the Volpe Center reinitiated research activities to address outstanding items recommended for fire safety research from the 1999 and 2002 rule-making activities. JENSEN HUGHES investigated the feasibility of using heat release rate criteria to evaluate fire performance of materials, review adequacy of existing industry standards for fire safety of wires and cables, and to investigate alternative methods for the floor fire barrier test. JENSEN HUGHES developed fire dynamics simulation model that was validated with data from small-scale and room corner tests. This research effort will finalize the modeling and conduct tests to provide technical justification for the proposed HRR performance test criteria as an alternative acceptance parameter to that of existing flammability and smoke emission test criteria, as found in - 238.103 Appendix B. JENSEN HUGHES current expertise and research progress gained in the past 18 months makes them uniquely qualified for a sole source contract to continue the research. A new contractor will need 3-6 months to become familiarized with the research and to begin working on the current tasks to be funded. This is time lost in getting the research results out to the passenger rail industry for update of current fire safety standards. The FRA intends to present the results to the National Fire Protection Association 130 Committee on Fire Protection for Guided Railway in support of updating the standards. NO SOLICITATION OR REQUEST FOR QUOTE IS AVAILABLE. This synopsis is not a request for competitive proposals; however interested parties may identify their interest and capability to respond to the requirement. Respondents must provide a capability statement. Oral communications are not acceptable in response to this synopsis. Interested parties with the capability of meeting the proposed requirements are requested to identify their interest by email to the FRA point of contact, Veronica Dorsey, Veronica.Dorsey@dot.gov no later than 2:00 p.m. Eastern Time, Tuesday, April 4, 2023. Such capabilities/qualifications will be evaluated solely to determine whether to conduct this procurement on a competitive basis. A determination by the Government not to compete this proposed effort on a full and open competition basis, based upon responses to this notice, is solely within the discretion of the Government.