SOLICITATION NOTICE
A -- The Effect of Public-Private Partnerships and Nontraditional Procurement Processes on Highway Planning, Environmental Review, and Collaborative Decision Making
- Notice Date
- 3/9/2010
- Notice Type
- Combined Synopsis/Solicitation
- NAICS
- 541712
— Research and Development in the Physical, Engineering, and Life Sciences (except Biotechnology)
- Contracting Office
- The National Academies, Transportation Research Board, SHRP2, 500 Fifth Street NW, Washington, District of Columbia, 20001, United States
- ZIP Code
- 20001
- Solicitation Number
- SHRP2_C12
- Archive Date
- 5/5/2010
- Point of Contact
- Stephen Andrle, Phone: 202-334-2810, Linda Mason, Phone: 202-334-3241
- E-Mail Address
-
sandrle@nas.edu, lmason@nas.edu
(sandrle@nas.edu, lmason@nas.edu)
- Small Business Set-Aside
- N/A
- Description
- SHRP 2 Request for Proposals Focus Area: Capacity Project Number: C12 Project Title: The Effect of Public-Private Partnerships and Nontraditional Procurement Processes on Highway Planning, Environmental Review, and Collaborative Decision Making Date Posted: March 9, 2010 SHRP 2 Background To address the challenges of moving people and goods efficiently and safely on the nation's highways, Congress has created the second Strategic Highway Research Program (SHRP 2). SHRP 2 is a targeted, short-term research program carried out through competitively awarded contracts to qualified researchers in the academic, private, and public sectors. SHRP 2 addresses four strategic focus areas: the role of human behavior in highway safety (Safety); rapid highway renewal (Renewal); improved travel time reliability through congestion reduction (Reliability); and transportation planning that better integrates community, economic, and environmental considerations into new highway capacity (Capacity). Under current legislative provisions, SHRP 2 will receive approximately $150 million with total program duration of 7 years. Additional information about SHRP 2 can be found on the program's Web site at www.trb.org/shrp2. Capacity Focus Area The Capacity charge from Congress is to develop approaches for systematically integrating environmental, economic, and community requirements into the analysis, planning, and design of new highway capacity. The scope of the SHRP 2 Capacity program extends from the early stages of the transportation planning process, when many potential alternatives are being considered, through project development. When decisions include a major highway component, further development of the highway option is within the scope of the program. When decisions are made that lead to non-highway options, further development of the non-highway component is outside the scope. A foundational product of the SHRP 2 Capacity research program is a Decision Guide consisting of 42 key decision points that occur during transportation project activities that are within the scope of this research. A decision point is one at which approvals and signoffs are required before the process can advance. (See Special Note 1.) These decision points are found within the following planning and project development activities: •Systems planning •Pre-program studies (e.g., corridor studies) •Programming •Environmental Review •Permitting The evidence from case studies conducted under project C01, from the broader literature, and from the personal experience of many professionals is that successful collaboration with resource agencies, elected officials, and the public is essential to timely completion of capacity-enhancing projects. Failure to collaborate early, successfully, and with commitment is often the root cause of delay, re-work, difficulty in environmental review or permitting, and even law suits. This project introduces public agency collaboration with private entities to deliver highway capacity through partnerships. As the Capacity research program evolved, it became clear that the Decision Guide is a framework to which the results of other Capacity research should be linked. In order to provide the multiple linkages required by this approach, a web-based resource was developed called Transportation for Communities-Advancing Projects through Partnerships (TCAPP). Passages from the case studies and other resources are linked to the applicable decision points in the Decision Guide so information can be found. A draft beta test version is located at http://transportationforcommunities.com. The results of C12 will be integrated into TCAPP. Project Background Public-private financial partnerships (P3s) to build, expand, and/or lease highway facilities (and combinations of these) have been successfully executed in the United States to achieve various objectives. Private funds are attractive in situations where public funding limitations would not allow a desired highway to be built for many years and the revenue-generating potential of a facility is deemed feasible. In notable cases, existing Interstate Highway facilities have been leased to private companies to generate cash to build other roads and to provide a funding mechanism for future renewal. Design-build contracts have been used to reduce delay between the design and construction and to provide for innovation. Design-build can be used under the traditional highway ownership model or it can be a component of a public-private partnership. There are many combinations of partnerships and delivery options and a variety of state laws governing the use of these techniques, resulting in considerable confusion in how they should be considered in the fiscally constrained public transportation planning, programming, environmental review, and decision processes. Project C12 addresses these issues. The basic forms of public-private partnerships, project delivery options (e.g., design-build and variants), provisions of state laws, and a glossary of terms are well described by the Federal Highway Administration's Office of Innovative Program Delivery on their website: http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/ipd/index.htm. Under the "Public-Private Partnerships" section of this site, refer especially to "P3 Defined," the "Public-Private Partnership Primer," and the glossary in the Primer. This RFP uses terms and concepts as defined in these documents. The "traditional" highway planning and project development system is well-adapted for consideration of publically funded highways. It is unclear, however, how this system should consider P3-type projects, particularly in regard to key decision points requiring collaboration with local agencies, resource agencies, or the public This project will focus on adapting the public decision process for considering public-private partnerships to address the concerns of state and local governments and resource agencies. Among their concerns are the following: 1. Need for state enabling legislation to use P3s (if it does not now exist) 2. Management of unsolicited proposals (where permitted) 3. Right-of-way and eminent domain issues: What authority can be granted to the private sector and what authority must the state retain? 4. How states consider potential private financial proposals and public-private partnerships under the fiscal constraint requirements of long-range planning and approval of Transportation Improvement Plans (TIP) and State Transportation Improvement Plans (STIP) 5. How P3s and design-build options are to be considered in planning, environmental review, and decision-making processes. 6. How to identify and manage long- and short-term risks. Where a public-private financial partnership first enters into the planning and environmental review process varies greatly in current practice with uncertain consequences. For instance, if such a proposal comes in late in the decision process, it may be inconsistent with the preferred alternative originally considered and necessitate a reopening of the NEPA process to consider a new alternative. If the private financial package had been considered earlier, however, it might have expedited the process. On the other side of the issue, private ventures may not be able to wait or to incur the financial risk of engaging in the public decision process. Timing is also important to provide opportunity for public consideration. If private financial proposals are received without sufficient time for the public to really understand the issues, intense opposition can arise. Another issue is created if financial proposals from either public or private sources provide only partial funding for a highway. Such proposals create expectations because they look like a "good deal," but they can distort funding priorities arrived at through the public planning process. Such proposals create pressure on state DOTs to provide funding even if doing so conflicts with other priorities or obligations. Finally, private financial proposals often, but not always, involve tolls, high-occupancy toll lanes, or even truck toll lanes. These operational concepts are not familiar in many states and can introduce another level of complexity to collaborative decision making. A state DOT or metropolitan planning organization coping with a private financial proposal must assess and communicate the benefits of these operational concepts as well as the ownership and control issues. There are three basic situations to which a P3 solution might apply: A.Lease of an existing highway B.Lease an existing highway with improvements C.New highway "A" represents the long-term lease of an existing facility. (If there are no enhancements to capacity, such cases are not of concern to this project.) "B" represents the long-term lease of an existing facility with a provision for expansion or renewal as part of the deal. This includes widening, new bridges, twin bridge spans, tunnel expansions, adding reversible lanes, etc. "C" represents a new facility on new right-of-way that would be financed, constructed, and operated by a private entity. (A graphic provided by FHWA under "P3 Defined" on the website noted above shows the various combinations of delivery mechanisms.) A P3 or design-build proposal may be introduced at any of the points in the decision process-long-range planning, corridor planning, programming, or even environmental review. Because the issues take on different forms depending on when a P3 or design-build option is introduced, proposers should consider issues in light of timing. Objective The objective of this project is to determine how public-private partnerships and/or nontraditional procurement methods should be considered at appropriate decision points in the Decision Guide to facilitate project delivery. Tasks Task descriptions are intended to provide a framework for conducting the research. SHRP 2 is seeking the insights of proposers on how best to achieve the research objective. Proposers are expected to describe research plans that can realistically be accomplished within the constraints of available funds and contract time. Proposals must present the proposers' current thinking in sufficient detail to demonstrate their understanding of the issues and the soundness of their approach to meet the research objective(s): 1. Review literature and FHWA documents on the Innovative Project Delivery website on P3s and non-traditional procurement processes. http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/ipd/index.htm. Choose three public-private partnerships for highways in the US or internationally that went to financial close (i.e., the financing commitments were signed) and evaluate the development of each through the decision points in place there at the time. Extract guidance and relate it to the decision points in the Decision Guide. 2. Identify and critique available guidance documents or software to assist in screening P3 opportunities that relates to the decision points in the decision guide. Note: In your proposal suggest the resources you plan to investigate and explain why. 3. Prepare a task report covering Tasks 1 and 2. Discuss the technical, financial, legal, and public acceptance characteristics of the P3 processes that resulted in financial closure and the interplay with the public planning and environmental review processes. Describe challenges in the US to successful implementation, and lessons learned from unsuccessful procurements. (The budget limit for Task 3 is $25,000). 4. Identify decision points in the Decision Guide where P3s should be considered. Describe the analysis necessary to make a decision vis-à-vis a P3 proposal (e.g. preliminary economic feasibility analysis). Coordinate throughout the project with the C01 contractor who will integrate this work into the Decision Guide in TCAPP. 5. Prepare interview guides for Tasks 6 and 7. Organize the interviews by new facilities, existing facilities, and existing highways plus enhancements. Discuss methods and opportunities to avoid procedural problems by considering P3s as early as possible in the decision guide. For example, where could actions be inserted into the Decision Guide to reduce barriers to effectively considering P3 projects? Submit to SHRP 2 for review. Note: In your proposal, provide sample interview questions. 6. Conduct selective interviews with state DOTs, MPOs, or highway-owning agencies that have meaningful experience with highway P3s. What processes are they considering or putting in place to make decisions regarding P3 financial proposals. Capture lessons learned and what is changing. Interview FHWA Headquarters and Division staff for background. Note: In your proposal, suggest interview candidates. 7. Conduct selective interviews with investors, investor-owners, operators, and contractor- developers who have experience with highway P3s. Capture insights on why they did or did not pursue past P3 highway opportunities. Investigate how, when, and under what circumstances the private sector might be engaged in the pubic collaborative decision-making process Note: In your proposal, suggest interview candidates. 8. Based on Tasks 6 and 7 relate the evolving public decision-making process for considering P3s to the private decision process for identifying and pursuing P3 opportunities. Discuss the nature, timing, and implementation of P3s both pre- and post-Record of Decision (ROD) in the NEPA process. (Emphasis on pre-ROD period) 9. Prepare a draft report organized according to the Decision Guide that maps the findings to the Decision Guide. This should be structured so that the findings may be integrated into the TCAPP software. Submit to SHRP 2 for review. 10. Add P3 glossary items, links to sample legislation, and links to relevant literature at appropriate decision points in TCAPP. (See FHWA website noted above) 11. Respond to comments on the Draft and submit a Final Report 12. Prepare a brief executive publication (1) describing how to evolve the public decision process on adding highway capacity to treat public-private partnerships, nontraditional procurement processes, and private financing as potential tools to enhance highway capacity, and (2) how the private sector can most effectively engage the public decision process. Conduct a webinar and at least two presentations at national conferences. Requirements of the Research Team 1. Significant experience in the development of successful P3 proposals. 2. Understanding of DOT and MPO planning, programming, and environmental review processes 3. Understanding of how the private sector views public-private partnerships for highway. 4. Familiarity with TCAPP software and SHRP 2 plans to integrate additional research into it. See transportationforcommunities.com 5. Capacity of team to complete the scope of work 6. Record of successful and relevant research experience 7. Two references for the team leader Special Note Transportation for Communities-Advancing Projects through Partnerships (TCAPP) is the product of SHRP 2 Project C01. It contains the Decision Guide (formerly called the Collaborative Decision-Making Framework) and provides the framework to which many SHRP 2 Capacity results will be attached. TCAPP is on the Internet at transportationforcommunities.com. More information on the contents of TCAPP is at www.TRB.Org/SHRP2/Capacity. The slides contained there have a clear graphic of the decision points in the Decision Guide. TCAPP also has a description under "Decision Guide Basics." The project C01 contractor maintains this website that provides background on how the Collaborative Decision-Making Framework was developed: http://sites.google.com/site/shrpc01/. Deliverables 1.Task 3 Report 2.Interview Guides for public and private sector interviews 3.Draft Final Report 4.Final Report 5.Electronic version of text structured to be incorporated into TCAPP 6.Executive Publication and two presentations at national conferences Funds Available: $300,000 Contract Period: 15 months for the entire project -12 months for research and 3 months for product review and revision. Responsible Staff: Stephen Andrle, sandrle@nas.edu, 202-334-2810 Authorization to Begin Work: September 2010, expected Proposals (20 single-bound copies) are due not later than 4:30 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time on April 20, 2010 This is a firm deadline, and extensions simply are not granted. In order to be considered, all 20 copies of the agency's proposal, accompanied by the executed, unmodified Liability Statement must be in our offices not later than the deadline shown, or they will be rejected. Delivery Address PROPOSAL-SHRP 2 ATTN: Neil F. Hawks Director, Strategic Highway Research Program 2 Transportation Research Board 500 Fifth Street, NW Washington, DC 20001 Phone: 202-334-1430 Liability Statement The signature of an authorized representative of the proposing agency is required on the unaltered statement in order for SHRP 2 to accept the agency's proposal for consideration. Proposals submitted without this executed and unaltered statement by the proposal deadline will be rejected. An executed, unaltered statement indicates the agency's intent and ability to execute a contract that includes the provisions in the statement. The Liability Statement is Figure 1 in the Manual for Conducting Research and Preparing Proposals for SHRP 2 (http://onlinepubs.trb.org/onlinepubs/shrp2/PreparingSHRP2Reports.pdf) (see General Note 4). Here is a printable version of the SHRP 2 Liability Statement (http://onlinepubs.trb.org/onlinepubs/shrp2/LiabilityStatement.pdf). A free copy of the Adobe Acrobat PDF reader is available at http://www.adobe.com. General Notes 1. Proposals will be evaluated by SHRP 2 staff and Expert Task Groups (ETGs) consisting of individuals collectively very knowledgeable in the problem area. Selection of an agency is made by the SHRP 2 Oversight Committee, based on the recommendation from SHRP 2 staff and the ETG. The following factors are considered: (1) the proposer's demonstrated understanding of the problem; (2) the merit of the proposed research approach and experimental design; (3) the experience, qualifications, and objectivity of the research team in the same or closely related problem area; (4) the proposer's plan for participation by disadvantaged business enterprises-small firms owned and controlled by minorities or women; and (5) the adequacy of facilities. TRB and the SHRP 2 Oversight Committee strongly encourage the significant participation of Disadvantaged Business Enterprises in SHRP 2 research contracts. Although no quota is specified nor is DBE participation mandated, the proposer's plan for involvement of DBEs is a factor in selection of the research contractor, and the contractor's adherence to its DBE plan will be monitored during the contract period. Contractors are required to submit periodic reports comparing actual with proposed payments to DBEs. The "Research Team Builder" section of the SHRP 2 web site (http://www.trb.org/StrategicHighwayResearchProgram2SHRP2/Public/Pages/Research_Team_Builder_177.aspx) is a resource for proposers interested in participating on research teams. 2. Any clarifications regarding this RFP will be posted on the SHRP 2 Web site (www.TRB.org/SHRP2). Announcements of such clarifications will be posted on the front page and, when possible, will be noted in the TRB e-newsletter. Proposers are advised to check the Web site frequently until April 9, 2010, when no further comments will be posted. 3. According to the provisions of Title 49, Code of Federal Regulations, Part 21, which relates to nondiscrimination in federally assisted programs, all parties are hereby notified that the contract entered into pursuant to this announcement will be awarded without discrimination on the grounds of race, color, religion, sex, national origin, or disability. 4. The essential features required in a proposal for research are detailed in the Manual for Conducting Research and Preparing Proposals for SHRP 2 (http://onlinepubs.trb.org/onlinepubs/shrp2/PreparingSHRP2Reports.pdf). Proposals must be prepared according to this document, and attention is directed specifically to Section IV for mandatory requirements. Proposals that do not conform to these requirements will be rejected. 5. The total funds available are made known in the project statement and line items of the budget are examined to determine the reasonableness of the allocation of funds to the various tasks. If the proposed total cost exceeds the funds available, the proposal is rejected. 6. All proposals become the property of the Transportation Research Board. Final disposition will be made according to the policies thereof, including the right to reject all proposals. IMPORTANT NOTICE Potential proposers should understand that the research project described herein is tentative. The final content of the program depends on the level of funding made available. Nevertheless, to be prepared to execute research contracts as soon as possible after sponsors' approvals, the Strategic Highway Research Program is assuming that the tentative program will become official in its entirety and is proceeding with requests for proposals and selections of research agencies.
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