This shall serve as the official pre-solicitation notice by Transportation Technology Center, Inc. (TTCI) for a project to design, develop and test a prototype compact portable remote terminal (PRT) to provide the employee in charge (EIC) of railroad roadway workers a wireless, functional link to the train control systemAn outcome of the design portion Positive Train Control (PTC) Development has been recognition of the potential benefits of an Employee in Charge (EIC) to transmit and receive information with PTC system via an easily portable remote terminal (PRT), such as a commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) personal data assistant. The PRT needs to be portable and hand-held, rather than anchored to a vehicle, because the EIC often needs to establish/maintain communication with the PTC system while away from a vehicle and involved in maintenance of way activities . However, the EIC vehicle could host, if needed, a gateway for the PRT to communicate with the larger PTC network. The improved communication between the EIC and the PTC system has the potential to improve both the safety and productivity of roadway worker operations. Phase I of the project has developed a high level functional requirements and desirable hardware characteristics document for the device and a Concept of Operations (CONOPS) document. These documents will be provided to prospective offerors who respond to this notice. Phase II, which is the subject of this notice, will design, build, demonstrate and test a prototype EIC PRT. Conceptually, there are many possible architectures for the EIC portable terminal. For example, it might have a wireless link to a roadway worker terminal (RWT) in the EIC's nearby vehicle. The EIC portable terminal could then communicate with the CBTC system either interacting with the RWT's applications or by using the RWT as merely a gateway to the CBTC system. Alternatively, the portable terminal may use a longer range data link (if available) to communicate with the office applications over the railroad’s network, avoiding having to be relayed through a RWT. Another concept has the portable terminal replacing the RWT entirely with a dockable hand-held device that can be removed from the EIC’s vehicle when needed, while maintaining real time wireless communications with the PTC system. Interested and qualified prospective offerors must reply to this notice (see point of contact below) requesting a copy of the Request for Information and Request for Expression of Interest (RFI EOI) document no later than the Response Date above. The Request for Proposal (RFP) for this work effort will be sent only to parties determined to be qualified based their responses to the RFI EOI, which are due July 2, 2004. The requirements for responses are specified in the RFI EOI document and include as a minimum: 1) showing understanding of the scope of the project; 2) providing rough estimates of time and cost to do the work; 3) organization capacity and qualification for conducting work of this nature including professional qualifications of the staff, and 4) documentation of previous similar experience including: a) evidence of a proven track record of providing customer satisfaction in performance of similar projects, b) description and volume of this specialized experience within the past 5 years, c) applicable customer contact information with customer performance evaluations on relevant projects, and d) evidence of familiarity with Positive Train Control and North American intercity freight and passenger railroad operations. If funded, this work will receive Federal funding. Prospective offerors must comply with flow-down provisions associated with 49CFR part 19 and TTCI General Articles of Contract, all of which will be incorporated into the RFP, as well as the resulting award document. Neither this notice or the RFI EOI document constitute a guarantee that a project will be funded or awarded. Original Point of Contact Requests for copies of the RFI EOI can be made by Email only to
[email protected]. Requestors will receive by return email a single file in PDF format containing the RFI EOI document. This return email will serve as formal acknowledgement of receipt of the request