Subject Matter Expertise Technical Consulting Support

SUMMARY This is a SOURCES SOUGHT notice solely for market research purposes. No quotes should be sent in response to this notice. A positive response to this sources sought will not guarantee a solicitation will be sent to your firm. The intent of this notice is for the Government to determine if this requirement can be fulfilled by a Small Business under NAICS 541330- Engineering Services size standard $16.5 million. If your firm can only cover part of these professional positions in the attached table, please provide addtional information regarding subcontractors requested in table. The Government is looking for small businesses that have the capability to cover all labor categories listed in the attached table. BACKGROUND The U.S. Department of Transportation, Office of the Assistant Secretary for Research and Technology, John A. Volpe National Transportation Systems Center (Volpe Center), Cambridge, MA, is looking for Small Businesses that would have the capability to provide PROFESSIONAL ENGINEERING services for technical Subject Matter Expert (SME) Support. The Systems Safety and Engineering Division at the Volpe Center supports the effort of the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) to provide administration, monitoring and oversight of its grants and loans including the Transportation Investment Generating Economic Return (TIGER) and Better Utilizing Investments to Leverage Development (BUILD) Transportation Discretionary Grants program. DESCRIPTION The Volpe Center is looking for capable vendors that will provide the Volpe Center technical Subject Matter Expertise (SME) in support of the FRA's oversight endeavor. Currently, support is for TIGER and BUILD rail related grants. Support to additional FRA-administered programs may be added in the future. There are both long-term assignments and short-term immediate tasks. All tasks will be structured to provide a flexible approach to the technical SME support to ensure consistent activities nationwide and, at the same time, demonstrate the ability to respond quickly and effectively to specific issues that may arise. Technical SME support to the Volpe Center under this contract includes: technical deliverable reviews and technical assistance. The Contractor will assist in the execution of the program, including producing reports, memoranda, presentations, and training materials. TASKS Grantees are required to provide a variety of deliverables to the Volpe as part of the agreement with the FRA. The Contractor will perform technical reviews of these deliverables. The Contractor may also be required to provide Subject Matter Expertise (SME) and technical assistance to the Government for any of the following areas. Technical Deliverable Reviews The Contractor will perform technical reviews of deliverables in the following areas. Project Management Plan: The Contractor will analyze the grantee's project management practices and Project Management Plan (PMP) for completeness and adequacy for the necessary elements to effectively manage the work for the given project phase. The Contractor will also analyze the grantee's policies, practices, and procedures related to the management, planning, design, construction, testing, and revenue operations of the project. The project management practices of the grantee should reflect a risk-informed approach to project management, i.e., as time progresses and the project develops and risks diminish. Safety and Security Management Plan: The Contractor will review the grantee's Safety and Security Management Plan (SSMP) and program as well as provide recommendations to the Government whether the grantee is adequately performing required safety and security management activities. The Contractor will analyze that the grantee has documented its approach to performing the required safety and security management activities and analyze that the grantee has the technical capacity to implement its SSMP, including adequate personnel, organization, budget, and schedule. The review will also consider whether the approach documented by the grantee's SSMP is being implemented as appropriate for the project's current stage. Planning and Concept Design: The Contractor will evaluate the grantee's planning processes and work products to provide input to the determination of the likelihood that the plan can achieve its stated purposes and goals through subsequent project implementation. The Contractor will review state rail planning, regional and corridor planning, and station area planning. The Contractor will assess the grantee's analysis of railroad and train capacity, operating conditions, and service potential, and the adequacy of concept design including reliability of the cost estimate. Project Schedule: The Contractor will perform schedule reviews and analyses to review whether the grantee's project schedule is sufficiently developed to establish the validity of the longest path of the project; also that critical areas such as right-of-way acquisition, utility relocation, wetland mitigation, and construction are sufficiently detailed to confirm if the schedule is reasonable and to estimate a probability of schedule slippage. The Contractor will analyze the usefulness of the schedule as a project management tool, identify problems, and provide technical assistance. The Contractor will prepare a report to document the findings, professional opinions, and recommendations following the schedule review. Environmental Documents: The Contractor will review, evaluate, and provide recommendations on the grantee's environmental processes and documents required by the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). Mitigation principles, plan for management, and implementation of mitigation actions. The Contractor may assist in the review of design plans to ensure consistency with environmental documents, and review the grantee's schedules for permits and approvals. The Contractor may also provide support during design and construction for consistency and assess environmental impacts or mitigation measures are reflected and implemented. Project Scope and Capacity: The Contractor will perform scope reviews to evaluate the grantee's project using industry guidelines with respect to the capacity of its individual rail system, facility features or functions, and to evaluate the proposed level of service. The Contractor will prepare a report to document the findings, professional opinions, and recommendations following the project scope/capacity review. Capital Cost Estimate: The Contractor will perform cost reviews to analyze the consistency of such data provided by the grantee to understand its characteristics and descriptions as well as the correlation between the quantity data in the estimates and the data established in the design deliverables. The MTAP will review whether the grantee cost data is truly reflective of the scope indicated on the design drawings, i.e., correct estimate quantities. Also, the Contractor should review the grantee's cost estimating methodology memorandum or report developed as part of alternatives analysis work and updated with each subsequent estimating effort. To accomplish this, the Contractor will perform cost characterization of the grantee cost data inclusive of the project estimate. The Contractor will also review the integration and traceability of that estimate into the defined scope of the project for purposes of - baselining the project estimate as the costs, scope issues, and project become more fully defined and developed through progression of project definition. The Contractor will identify and separately list risks discovered in the cost review and evaluate the potential likelihood and impact of these risks on the cost, scope, and schedule. Design Documents: The Contractor will review engineering designs and specifications for accuracy and applicability. The Contractor will review the adequacy of the design requirements to analyze the capability of the design to meet these requirements and to identify problems. The design review will include recommendations to the Government with the goal of having all system requirements allocated, requirements completed, and that the proposed design meets the functional and performance requirements. Buy America: FRA encourages domestic sourcing of materials and products for federally funded rail projects. The Contractor will review the grantee's compliance with the Buy America requirements of the Passenger Rail Investment and Improvement Act of 2008 (PRIIA), the Buy American Act of 1933, and adherence to the Buy America or Domestic Buying Preference clause set forth in their agreement with FRA. Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA): The Contractor will review the grantee's compliance with the regulations issued by the U.S. Department of Transportation to implement transportation-related sections of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (49 CFR Parts 27, 37 and 38). The review focuses on the provision of access to facilities and passenger cars. Value Engineering: The Contractor will perform a review of the grantee's Value Engineering (VE) program to assess the efficacy of the process and quality of decisions weighing long-and short-term value (quality/capacity) against long- and short-term cost. Fleet Management Plan: The Contractor will analyze if the grantee has met the requirement to have a Fleet Management Plan as well as the grantee's ability to carry out the Plan. The Contractor will provide professional opinions to the Government on whether the Plan is: (1) feasible based on the resources immediately available to the grantee; (2) sustainable based on the long-term infrastructure and resources anticipated to be available to the grantee; and (3) comprehensive based on consideration of the required factors to properly maintain and operate the new or refurbished vehicles contemplated. The Contractor may be required to conduct on-site inspections of equipment, related facilities, data, documentation, or records to analyze the grantee's effectiveness in implementing the Fleet Management Plan in conformance with the agreement with the FRA, sound operating or engineering practices, or other statutory and administrative requirements. Inspection visits may be made, for example, to follow up on information received from the grantee about an event with significant impact on the project or to analyze whether the grantee has adequately implemented the Fleet Management Plan. The Contractor may also be required to review grantee documentation, perform its own technical review and physical inspections, characterize the grantee's Fleet Management Plan, and submit to the Government recommendations regarding the validity of the plan and operating assumptions in conformance with these procedures. Rail Vehicle Technical and Procurement: The Contractor will report on the completeness and accuracy of grantee's deliverables, including contractual deliverable documents, to analyze whether the documents will address all of the characteristics to be demonstrated throughout analysis. This will incorporate testing phases, design documentation, and quality assurance/quality control (QA/QC) plans to analyze whether the supplier's QA/QC will be performed under adequate surveillance. The Contractor will also identify when the grantee's actual and stated needs are in conflict. The Contractor will provide recommendations to the Government for corrective action and timely intervention when there are indications that the vehicle will not satisfy the grantee's actual needs. The review should ensure that the vehicles being procured are a good fit for the intended use, represent good value for the product selected, meet the specified requirements, include the most appropriate technologies, and are brought into successful operations on the projects of the various participating grantees. Construction Management: The Contractor will review the grantee's procedures for construction management and implementation, including administration, management, inspection; coordination with third parties, site logistics, phasing, shop drawing, request for information (RFI) processing; change order and claims procedures; and standards for substantial completion and final completion. Risk Assessments and Contingency: The Contractor will implement and maintain a continuous risk planning and monitoring process. Risk assessments for a capital project will include a base condition for scope, cost, and time for known elements (e.g., design quantities, unit costs, duration); a risk condition for scope, cost, and time for unknown or uncertain elements; and a combined base and risk condition. Uncertain project elements will be identified; and project targets, such as performance, cost, and schedule estimates, will be expressed as a range that varies in value, reflecting the potentially large impacts of uncertain elements and unidentified risk. These uncertain elements and unidentified risks adjust the base cost to give an approximation of the total project cost that ranges in value expressed as a probability distribution. The Contractor will analyze the risk assessment findings and provide professional opinions to the Government as to the reliability of the project scope, cost, and schedule of the project and describe uncertainties. Closeout of Grant: The closeout of grant review includes review of final closeout documentation, including the grantee's final property accounting, final progress report, and final performance report. The Contractor will also review documentation to ensure the grantee has resolved monitoring corrective actions, any audit findings, and any outstanding deliverables are addressed and obtain FRA approval. Technical Assistance The Contractor may be required to provide technical assistance in any of the areas described above, particularly where the Contractor notes deficiencies or recommendations to the Government, discovered through reviews. Technical assistance may be provided to the grantee, the FRA, and other governmental agencies. Assistance will need to be provided by SMEs in the field of railroad safety, railroad design, transportation planning, construction management, operations, regulatory compliance and others. This task is to assist in overcoming obstacles and problems that arise throughout the execution of the agreement with the FRA. Technical assistance activities include assessing grantee's activities (most likely informed by information collected while performing monitoring activities); identifying strategies and measures to address project development challenges; and teaching, training, or tutoring of the grantee, or affiliated entities on topics, strategies and lessons learned or best practices related to the grantee's project development and delivery. SUBMISSION INSTRUCTIONS If your firm has the ability to fulfill these required professional labor categories in table attached, please provide a positive response to this SOURCES SOUGHT notice by completing the table attached and emailing it back to the Contracting Officer Christine.Guy@dot.gov by 4pm on January 29, 2020. ANY INQUIRIES VIA TELEPHONE WILL NOT BE HONORED.