This amendment corrects the due date to March 15, 2021 I. PURPOSE The purpose of this Notice is to inform industry of the Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) plan to provide testbed connectivity to exchange data between a laboratory version of the TFDM system and external industry platforms and seek industry participation. This is not a Screening Information Request (SIR) or Request for Proposal (RFP) of any kind. The FAA is not seeking or accepting unsolicited proposals. Responders are advised that the FAA will not pay for any information received or for administrative costs incurred in preparing a response to this notification. Any costs associated with responding to this survey are solely at the interested vendor’s expense. The FAA does not intend to publish the results of any information received pertaining to this notice. II. INTENT The FAA intends to use this testbed connectivity to allow flight operators, airport operators, and technology partners the ability to test the connection of their external systems with the FAA’s TFDM system and validate the data exchanges. The data exchange is based on the exchange standards described in the TFDM system’s two System Wide Information Management (SWIM) Java Messaging Service Description Documents (JMSDD): TFDM Terminal Publication (TTP) and TFDM Flight Operator System (FOS) Collaboration Service (TFCS). The primary goal of these tests is to validate that external systems can successfully connect to and consume TTP and TFCS data. These tests will also allow users to validate how their systems may utilize TFDM data to better manage their operations. Ultimately, these tests allow the industry and technology providers to be prepared for TFDM’s deployment in FY2022 or later. II. BACKGROUND The FAA’s TFDM System is the NextGen solution for air traffic surface management. TFDM will provide capabilities for air traffic controllers in the air traffic control tower (ATCT) to improve the management of the airport surface, enhance data exchange, and improve integration between TFDM and other FAA systems. TFDM provides electronic flight strips as well as a suite of decision support tools designed to improve surface management, including tools to implement surface metering programs (SMP) and share data with flight operators. These tools and data exchange are expected to allow flight operators to shift taxi-out delay from the movement area to the gate (reducing fuel burn and emissions), improve compliance with other traffic management initiatives (reducing delay) and allow for better schedule predictability. At the heart of TFDM is data exchange with flight and airport operators. That data exchange is achieved by utilizing the FAA’s SWIM infrastructure to share data with both internal FAA systems and external FAA stakeholders. To achieve the TFDM program benefits for both the FAA and industry, successful data exchange using TFDM’s two SWIM services (TTP and TFCS) is necessary. The TTP service is a subscription service allowing flight operators to subscribe to data published by TFDM including flight-specific data, delay data, airport information (e.g., runway configuration in use), traffic management restriction data, operational metrics, and surface metering program data. The TFCS service is a request/reply service whereby operators can request flight substitutions during an SMP and provide airport information (e.g., ramp or gate closures) to the FAA and receive a response back from the TFDM system. Additional information about the TFDM program, where it will be deployed, and the functionality it will provide can be found here: https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/technology/tfdm/ III. TECHNICAL APPROACH The FAA’s TFDM vendor has developed a version of the TFDM software running in a virtual laboratory environment. This environment includes a full version of the TFDM software that provides all of TFDM’s decision support tool capabilities and has a simulation capability to play back recorded operational National Airspace System (NAS) data into TFDM. The TFDM system is then able to publish TFDM data to a simulated NAS Enterprise Messaging Service (NEMS) node. This simulated node will provide both the TTP and TFCS services that will be deployed over SWIM by the TFDM program in the future. Any participant approved to connect to the TFDM testbed will first work with the TFDM vendor to establish a secure VPN connection over IP to the simulated NEMS node. Once connected, the participant and FAA will select a two-week period of time to conduct data exchange tests. During these tests, simulated data will be published by the vendor’s virtual TFDM system over the TTP service allowing participants to subscribe to the data and validate the data exchange. Additional scenarios during the two week test period will allow the participant to submit requests utilizing the TFCS request/reply service. During those tests, participants will submit a request to the TFCS service and receive a reply back to allow for validation of the data exchange. If necessary and at the discretion of the FAA, additional time for testing and/or additional operational scenario test data may be added. IV. AVAILABILITY & LIMITATIONS The FAA has limited resources to support the connection of industry partners. Connections to the testbed will be accepted on a first-come first-served basis: For this trial period, the FAA is limited to a maximum of six participants. Responses to this notification will be assessed for participation approval in the order of their email response date/time stamp. After assessing all the respondents, if the FAA finds a need to have a second trial, the FAA will contact the remaining qualified respondents and notify them of the opportunity to participate in the follow on trial. Respondents approved for the trial will be notified by the FAA contracting officer within 30 days after closing of the response date. For the approved respondents pertinent documents related to System Wide Information Management (SWIM) Java Messaging Service Description Documents (JMSDD): TFDM Terminal Publication (TTP) and TFDM Flight Operator System (FOS) Collaboration Service (TFCS) will be provided. The FAA may discontinue testing with the testbed at any time at its discretion. The FAA will not provide any hardware, software, or data storage for industry to use to connect to the testbed. All costs for industry to connect to the testbed and conduct data exchange tests is the responsibility of the individual company/partner and not the FAA. The FAA will not provide any reimbursement for any costs associated with this RFI. The FAA will provide limited technical support to allow industry partners to connect to the testbed and address any data exchange issues found. The FAA will limit the types of data passed via the testbed to industry to only data that is allowed per FAA data access regulations. Sensitive flight data and collaborative-decision making data will not be released as part of this testing. The FAA does not guarantee the accuracy of the data provided by the testbed as this data is for test purposes only. Data received from the testbed connection cannot be used by industry partners for any other use without the consent of the FAA’s TFDM Program. V. Submission Content For successful and efficient utilization of the FAA’s TFDM testbed, any company or organization requesting to connect must do the following: Complete responses are required to be no more than 10 pages Describe your company and provide point of contact information (e.g., US based, flight service operator products/services, flight data management products/services, experience with creating air traffic aviation products, etc.). Describe your demonstration intent in connecting to the TFDM testbed. Describe your experience utilizing the FAA’s SWIM data products, plus any tools or software platforms planned to use to access and manage the TFDM data. Describe your capability in meeting the following minimal technical qualification requirements: Knowledge of airport surface air traffic control operations Knowledge of aviation flight data and traffic flow management data used by the FAA for air traffic control and decision support operations Knowledge of the FAA’s SWIM infrastructure and messaging protocols Ability to connect (via VPN) to a dedicated secure IP address that simulates a SWIM NEMS node Ability to consume and utilize large and complex datasets of aviation specific data Use of existing software platforms (or the ability to develop new software) that can efficiently use and display TFDM data VI. Submission Instructions Interested parties must provide responses in writing. Responses must be no more than 10 pages long and must be in PDF format in Times New Roman 12 Font. Responses must be submitted via email only no later than 5 PM EST on March 15, 2021 to the Contracting Officer at
[email protected] and the TFDM Deputy Program Manager, Doug Swol at
[email protected] . While proprietary or confidential information is not sought, any such information contained in the Market survey submissions must be appropriately marked.