SOLICITATION NOTICE
A -- TRANSIMS Deployment Case Studies
- Notice Date
- 4/3/2009
- Notice Type
- Presolicitation
- NAICS
- 541990
— All Other Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services
- Contracting Office
- Department of Transportation, Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), Office of Acquisition Management, HAAM, Mail Stop E65-101, 1200 New Jersey Avenue, SE, Washington, District of Columbia, 20590
- ZIP Code
- 20590
- Solicitation Number
- DTFH61-09-R-00012
- Archive Date
- 5/5/2009
- Point of Contact
- Joseph A. Fusari,, Phone: 2023664244, Bob G Prior,, Phone: (202)366-4247
- E-Mail Address
-
Joseph.fusari@dot.gov, Bob.Prior@dot.gov
- Small Business Set-Aside
- N/A
- Description
- TRANSIMS Deployment Case Studies DTFH61-09-R-00012 The Office of Planning, Environment and Realty within the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) intends on issuing a multiple award Broad Agency Announcement (BAA). The FHWA intends to issue a BAA solicitation for proposals for research and development projects that could lead to better understanding and advances for tools and methodologies in conducting emissions analysis for transportation projects in the United States on or about May 17, 2009. The solicitation will be distributed through the General Services Administration Federal Business Opportunities web site at www.fbo.gov. Hard copies of the solicitation will not be available. The site provides downloading instructions. All future information about this acquisition, including amendments, will be distributed through this site. Interested parties are responsible for monitoring this site to insure that they have the most up-to-date information about this acquisition. BACKGROUND Section 5512 of the Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users (SAFETEA-LU), Public Law 109-59, provides funding for the acceleration of the Transportation Analysis and Simulation System (TRANSIMS) deployment, training on the use of TRANSIMS and development of new applications of TRANSIMS. The goals of a future Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) are as follows: • The use of simulation-based models is evolving in transportation planning practice. The BAA will support investigations directed toward increasing practitioner knowledge and understanding of travel modeling and simulation; • SAFETEA-LU calls for the deployment of TRANSIMS. A future BAA is intended to broaden the TRANSIMS user base by emphasizing teaming and application to local planning issues; and • SAFETEA-LU calls for TRANSIMS studies on a wide range of topics. To this end, a future BAA will provide for locally relevant applications of TRANSIMS representing a diversity of populations, geographic regions, and analysis methods. TRANSIMS is an agent-based travel simulation system designed to meet the State Department of Transportations’ (DOTs') and Metropolitan Planning Organizations’ (MPOs') need for higher fidelity transportation planning and emissions analyses. Because TRANSIMS simulates and tracks travel by individuals, the benefits and impacts on different travel markets can be evaluated. Furthermore, TRANSIMS has the capability to evaluate highly congested scenarios and operational changes on highways and transit systems. TRANSIMS differs from previous travel demand forecasting methods in its underlying concepts and structure. These differences include a consistent and continuous representation of time, a detailed representation of persons and households; time-dependent routing; and a person-based micro simulator. There are four primary modules: Population synthesizer, Activity generator, Route planner, and Traffic micro simulator. Using these components, a model may be constructed that estimates activities for individuals and households, plans trips satisfying those activities, assigns trips to routes, and creates a micro simulation of all persons, vehicles and resulting traffic on modeled transport systems in given study area. Researchers at the Los Alamos National Laboratory (www.lanl.gov) designed and developed the original TRANSIMS algorithms and software. The design for TRANSIMS is based on requirements in: • the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act of 1991 (ISTEA) (Public Law (PL) 102-240), • the Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century (TEA-21) (PL 105-178) as amended by the TEA 21 Restoration Act (PL 105-206), and • The Clean Air Act of 1990 (PL 101-549) Amendments. The development of TRANSIMS has been funded by the Federal Highway Administration with support from the Federal Transit Administration, the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Transportation Policy of the United States Department of Transportation, and by the Environmental Protection Agency. CURRENT STATUS TRANSIMS development has proceeded along several lines. These include development of application methods, data sets, and software The following methods have been used on multiple studies. Further documentation can be found at http://transims-opensource.org and http://tmip.fhwa.dot.gov/transims. • Network data synthesis: Methods for translating multimodal link-node databases for use in TRANSIMS have been developed and documented. These include insertion of GIS-based centerline files and estimating traffic control characteristics. • Trip-based network simulation: Methods for translating regional trip tables into time-varying highway demand data; routing and simulating highway; equilibrating highway route flows; and calibration have been developed. Also referred to as “Track 1” methods, this approach is currently recommended as the starting point for initiating a TRANSIMS study. These methods rely on trip processing and selection tools, the router, and the micro simulator. • Household activity simulation: Quick response methods for generating household activities, schedules, and locations have been developed. Methods for routing and simulating of highway tours are under development. Data Sets Several data sets are available for research, development, and testing. These include notional grid and freeway data sets, validation data sets derived from the NGSIM program, and a demonstration data set based on Alexandria VA. These data sets may be browsed at http://transims.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/transims/version4/trunk/case_studies/. Software The software and source code are made available under the NASA Open Source Agreement v1.3. This license makes the source code open to the public and requires that any changes to the original code remain publicly available. The license permits use within other software without restriction. For further information, see http://www.opensource.org/licenses/nasa1.3.php TRANSIMS is implemented as a toolbox and over forty software tools have been developed based on the work in Portland and other studies. These include methods to convert node and link data into TRANSIMS format, estimate intersection signalization, and assist with data preparation and application. The TRANSIMS software is written primarily in C++. However, 32-bit and 64-bit versions are available for Linux and Windows. Support is available via documentation and forums. The software and source code is available from http://sourceforge.net/projects/transims/. For more information on the software, forums, and supporting utilities, see http://transims-opensource.org/ OBJECTIVES: The objectives of the upcoming solicitation will seek projects that demonstrate the capabilities of TRANSIMS. Possible demonstration of TRANSIMS capabilities would include, but not be limited to, modeling an entire region, modeling a sub-region larger than typical traffic simulations, or applying a person based simulation to the sub-region. Furthermore, the FHWA seeks to expand the knowledge, understanding and implementation of TRANSIMS capabilities and applications, and seeks to develop new approaches, tools, and applications covering a diversity of methods, users and geographic area. Objectives 1. Apply TRANSIMS to local issues of interest with the involvement of public agencies, 2. Employ a multidisciplinary, team-oriented approach, and 3. Employ a sound methodology clearly appropriate to the study issues and available data. GENERAL INFORMATION: The FHWA has budgeted approximately $1,400,000 to fund this research program. Upon issuance of the solicitation, proposals will be evaluated using a two-part process consisting of pre-proposals and full-proposals.
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