VOLPE CENTER STRATEGY FOR REPLACEMENT OF MULTIPLE CONTRACTOR RESOURCE BASE (OMNI) CONTRACTS The Volpe Center is pleased to announce its plans to re-procure the technical services currently provided under its Multiple Contractor Resource Base, commonly known as the OMNI contracts. For each functional area the following has been decided: Vehicle Guideway and Terminals (VGT) -- we will not be procuring these services at this time; Information Systems Engineering (ISE) -- we have requested and received a modification to our delegation of procurement authority to extend the ordering period 18 months for each of the existing ISE contracts; Communications, Navigation and Surveillance (CNS) -- a procurement will be initiated to establish multiple award task order contracts to provided these services. The formal synopsis will be published in the Commerce Business Daily and posted on the Volpe Center Acquisition Web site in October of 1997; Operations, Research and Analysis (ORA) -- a procurement will be initiated to establish multiple award task order contracts to provide these services. The formal synopsis will be published in the Commerce Business Daily and posted on the Volpe Center Acquisition Web site in December of 1998. Currently, we have in process a solicitation to establish multiple award task order contracts for Safety and Security Systems (solicitation No. DTRS57-97-R-00007). These S&S contracts are considered in the same category as the contracts described above. Special Exclusionary Provision The Volpe Center expects to award contracts for technical and administrative support services to be performed primarily on-site at the Volpe Center in Cambridge, Mass. Firms awarded these on-site contracts will furnish institutional and programmatic support to many of the same projects that the contractors awarded the task order contracts described above will be working on. It is anticipated that the on-site support services contractors will have day-to day involvement in Center projects that will provide them with advance, nonpublic information on upcoming competitions under these newly established multiple award task order contracts. If one of these on-site contractors were also awarded one of these task order contracts, it could have an unfair competitive advantage over the other task order contract holders. To avoid creating such an unfair competitive advantage, a contractor awarded one of the on-site support services contracts will be precluded from receiving a multiple award task order contract in the CNS, ORA and S&S areas, either at the prime contract or subcontract level. This exclusion was set forth in the solicitations for the on-site support services contracts. Subcontractors to one of the on-site support services contractors will not be per se excluded from receiving a task order contract described here. In such a case, the task order contract prime contractor will be expected to take mitigating actions to assure that it obtains no unfair competitive advantage in any task competition either as a result of being a subcontractor to one of the on-site support services contractors, or as a result of subcontracting with a firm that is a subcontractor to one of the on-site support services contractors. Task Order contractors may not act as both a prime contractor and a subcontractor in the same functional area. Proposals involving such teaming arrangements will be eliminated from consideration. WEB: Volpe Center Acquisition Division Home Page, http://www.volpe.dot.gov/procure/procure.htm.

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