Purpose of the Announcement: This is a Sources Sought notice. This is not a solicitation for proposals, proposal abstracts, or quotations. The purpose of this notice is to obtain information regarding the availability and capability of organizations for the proposed acquisition. Your responses to the information requested will assist the government in determining the appropriate acquisition method, including whether a set-aside is possible. Background: The Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) seeks capability statements from interested and qualified potential sources for the completion of a naturalistic observational study that would objectively assess in a sample of teenagers the nature and amount of supervised practice driving they obtain and determine the relationship of supervised practice driving on independent driving performance. The requirements of the research include the completion of the following activities that are already underway: - Recruit a total sample of approximately 100 teenagers and at least one parent of each soon after the teenagers obtain a permit to drive a vehicle with a supervising adult present. - "Instrument" the primary vehicle the participating teenagers will drive with data acquisition systems that include at least the following: accelerometers; global positioning systems; continuously running cameras that can view the drivers', the vehicle cabin, and the forward and rearward roadway; and a computer that can store the data captured. - Collect the following data over an 18-month period from "permit" to 6 months after provisional (independent driving) licensure: amount of supervised practice; nature of supervised practice in terms of the time, routes, locations, and distances traveled; instruction provided by adult supervisors; crashes and near crashes; g-force events; driver behavior including secondary tasks; and driving performance in complex driving conditions such as when merging or dealing with intersections. - Maintain high quality data collection and subject retention; - Reduce and code the data for analyses of driving performance, including crashes and near crashes, g-force events, driving skill, and attention - compare driving performance and risk between teens and parents; - conduct additional analyses of the data collected on driving performance by driving conditions; - store the collected data and maintain its confidentiality Responses: Capability statements in response to this announcement should be no longer than 5 pages inclusive of all material. Responses will be evaluated on the basis of experience, expertise, and capabilities in the following technical areas: A. Recruiting teenagers and parents for naturalistic studies involving driving data acquisition systems; B. Maintaining a cohort of teenage and parent participants over the course of at least 12 months; C. Obtaining a supply of at least 100 data acquisition systems for continuous recording of data from at least the following components: accelerometers; global positioning systems; four cameras that can view the drivers', the vehicle cabin and the forward and rearward roadway; audio recording; connection to the vehicles ODP port; and a CPU that can be installed in the vehicle to store the captured data. D. Staffing, training, experience, and quality control for installing driving data acquisition systems in any vehicle within 3 hours; E. Mechanisms and procedures for downloading from vehicles data from driving data acquisition systems; F. Storage capacity of at least 100 terabytes for the naturalistic driving data; G. Trained and experienced staff and a secure laboratory for coding and reducing large amounts of naturalistic data for use in analyses of crashes and near crashes, g-force event rates, and driving exposure and performance. Interested organizations that believe they possess the capabilities necessary to undertake this project should submit electronic copies in addition to two (2) hard copies of their capability statement, addressing the areas above. Please limit responses to five (5) pages or less. Any proprietary information should be so marked. Written capability statements should be received by the Contracting Officer by no later than 4:30PM Eastern Time on April 8, 2011. Capability statements must identify the business status of the organization (i.e. educational institution, non-profit, large business, small business, 8 (a), or other corporate or non-corporate entity). NO COLLECT CALLS WILL BE ACCEPTED. RESPONDENTS MAY SUBMIT THEIR CAPABILITY STATEMENTS VIA E-MAIL IN ADDITION TO THE 2 HARD COPIES. Information submitted should be pertinent and specific in the technical area under consideration, on each of the following qualifications (1) Experience: an outline of previous projects, specific work previously performed or being performed and any in-house research and development effort; (2) Personnel: Name, professional qualifications and specific experience of scientist, engineers and technical personnel who may be assigned as principal investigator and/or project officer: (3) Facilities: Availability and description of special facilities required to perform in the technical areas under consideration. A statement regarding industrial security clearance. Any other specific and pertinent information as pertains to this particular area of procurement that would enhance our consideration and evaluation of the information submitted.
