U.S. Department of Transportation Small Business Innovation Research Fiscal Year 2026 Phase I Solicitation
Contract Overview
Solicitation details, issuing organization, response deadlines, documents, and interested companies for this government contract opportunity.
AI Contract Overview
The U.S. Department of Transportation (U.S. DOT) is preparing its Fiscal Year 2026 SBIR Phase I solicitation, inviting small businesses to explore upcoming research opportunities across various transportation-related areas. This notice serves as a pre-solicitation announcement for the SBIR program, running from April 29 through May 29, 2026, during which small businesses can submit technical questions about the proposed research topics via an online forum. However, no formal proposals or submissions are accepted at this stage. All questions must focus solely on clarifying the research topics and must not include proprietary or solution-related details, as all posted inquiries and responses will be publicly accessible. The solicitation, expected to be released around June 3, 2026, covers research topics spanning multiple DOT administrations, including the Federal Highway Administration, Federal Railroad Administration, Federal Transit Administration, Office of the Secretary, and the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration. Topics address innovations such as edge AI integration for traffic congestion, automated inspection systems, emergency energy storage solutions, AI-powered trip planning, predictive safety analytics, and advanced hazardous materials packaging and fire response technologies. Only small businesses meeting SBA SBIR requirements and registered in the SBA SBIR Company Registry and SAM databases will be eligible to submit proposals upon solicitation release. An informational webinar will be held in early June to provide additional guidance on the solicitation and any program updates.
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Full Description
The U.S. Department of Transportation (U.S. DOT), Office of the Assistant Secretary for Research and Technology, John A. Volpe National Transportation Systems Center (Volpe Center), is providing this notice to issue its Fiscal Year (FY) 2026 Phase I solicitation pursuant to the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Program. The purpose of this solicitation is to invite U.S. small businesses to submit innovative research offers in response to the solicitation topics, which serve as key research areas for the U.S. DOT. Each small business concern submitting an offer must qualify as a small business in accordance with the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR); 13 CFR 121.702. The applicable North American Industry Classification System code is 541715 with a size standard of 500 employees.
In addition to this SAM posting, the U.S. DOT SBIR FY 2026 Phase I solicitation and any documents related to it will be available on the U.S. DOT SBIR program website. This solicitation is issued through electronic means only; no hard copies will be available. A pre-proposal webinar is being held on June 9, 2026 from 2:00-3:00 pm Eastern Time. Information on the pre-proposal webinar may be found in the solicitation on page ii and/or from the U.S. DOT SBIR program website.
Technical questions and answers received on the SBIR FY26 topics that were released during the pre-solicitation period of April 29, 2026, through May 29, 2026, are available at https://usdot.uservoice.com/forums/967226-u-s-dot-fy-2026-phase-i-pre-solicitation-q-a. There are frequently asked questions and answers (FAQs) relative to the overall SBIR program on the U.S. DOT SBIR program website. Offerors must go to the website to access the FAQs.
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