Pursuant to FAR 13.5 and FAR 6.302-1, USDA, Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS), Plant Protection and Quarantine intends to award a sole source supply contract in that only one responsible source and no other providers will satisfy agency requirements (see attached justification). The award will be a fixed price Purchase Order under FAR PART 12 Acquisition of Commercial Items from Lloyd’s List Intelligence. This is not a request for competitive proposals. The Government seeks to acquire Licenses from Lloyd’s List Intelligence to access their proprietary Sea searcher Container Tracker database, for research on global sea container traffic related to plant health pest risks. This will occur at: USDA APHIS PPQ AMS FW PPE 5676-1256J7 742 E FOND DU LAC STREET RIPON WI 54971-9555 (Draft Statement of Work is attached.) The requirement is essential to meeting the government's needs. Any interested sources including small businesses capable of providing the equivalent services in the future are encouraged to contact APHIS for implementing a robotic platform for research on global sea container traffic related to plant health pest risks. A determination by the Government not to compete this requirement is based on market research conducted. We searched widely for companies or organizations with container shipping information. Nearly all search results default to vessel data unless the search is limited to results with “sea container.” Most container-specific results were related to summary shipping industry data, or shipping rates (costs), rather than information about traffic (see below). Some claimed to facilitate container tracking, but only when using their services for shipping (e.g., a company called SeaRates). One company, S&P Global, contains limited container-level shipping information within its database. That platform is described as delivering information about global trade and markets, country and product trends, and port and maritime trends. They also mention having data on twenty-foot equivalent units, or containers, but it is clearly a smaller part of what they try to report on. We are requesting a license from them as well, but think the data will be less robust, and mostly suited for filling any gaps or verifying the other data. As far as we know, Lloyd’s List Intelligence is the only company with a dedicated database for such information. The SeaSearch Container Tracker database purportedly covers nearly 88 percent of global container movements, for 70,000 ports, and returns matches for 94 percent of queries in their users experience. The data also cover the entire “loading to discharge” journey (i.e., from initial packing, to transport, to unpacking at the endpoint), which is critical for our work. A recent peer-reviewed journal article in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) described Lloyd’s List Intelligence as “one of the most reliable sources of maritime intelligence and ship movement information.” We contacted Lloyd’s and arranged for a demonstration with sample data. Some consignments for fruit and vegetable imports were not covered, apparently because they were being shipped by so-called third-party logistics companies, rather than directly via shipping lines. Overall, however, the test led us to believe that the data would be sufficient for our purposes. While no one company seems likely to cover all the container shipping information for global traffic, the Seasearcher Container Tracker database clearly seemed to us to provide the greatest coverage and opportunity to build a reasonable database of container movements with one year of access. No requests for capability briefings will be honored as a result of this notice. Interested sources who submit data are responsible for appropriately marking information if it is proprietary in nature. The Government will not award an award based on the information received, nor reimburse participants for information they provide. Information provided is strictly voluntary. Please email Latisha Hollman at
[email protected]. Closing date of this notice is July 5, 2023. The North American Industry Classification Code (NAICS) is 519290 with a small business size standard of 1,000 employees.