Broad Agency Announcement for Third Round of Exploratory Advanced Research

Closes 4:00 pm EST February 4, 2009

The Federal Highway Administration issued a broad agency announcement soliciting proposals that address a third round of identified Exploratory Advanced Research topics. During 2007 and early 2008 FHWA engaged stakeholders from within and outside the traditional highway research community to identify topics of research that promise transformation and possible breakthroughs in highway technology, processes and policies. FHWA is moving forward with six of the topic areas that had a strong scientific and technical basis through the issuance of this BAA. The six topic areas include:

• Behavioral Sciences Approach to Testing, Validating and Establishing Best Practices for Alternative Highway Revenue Collection - This innovative research will improve understanding of how travelers make decisions when faced with road pricing and congestion and will lead to evidence-based methods for setting user-based highway fees. The research will also assist policy makers with robust decisions concerning the provision of highway services and pricing.

• Advanced Imaging Systems - This research uses a radically different approach for sensing using advanced digital imaging rather than video broadcasting technologies. Scientific imaging technologies combined with new signal processing could lead to significant improvements sensing vehicles and pedestrians in a range of lighting and atmospheric conditions. Advanced imaging systems could provide more accurate classification counts, enable anonymous origin-destination studies, provide earlier prediction of potential collisions, and provide a foundation for innovative solutions to reduce traffic congestion through enhanced signal control.

• Freeway Merge Assistance – This research will investigate whether vehicle-vehicle and vehicle-infrastructure cooperation could allow significantly safer and more efficient merging of intelligent vehicles into vehicle streams on freeways. The concepts could include the creation of individual gaps in the mainline freeway lane, the communication of the availability of the gap to an individual driver waiting to merge, and the control over the merging action through real-time communication and control actions.

• Next Generation Vehicle Positioning – This research will investigate other supplemental positioning systems for the determination of positioning in areas that fundamentally cannot receive the critical GPS signals needed for emerging advanced driver assistance systems. This enhanced capability would enable applications that require lane level positioning such as intersection collision avoidance, road departure warning, and automated vehicle lateral or longitudinal control.

• Driver Behavior In Traffic - The objective of this research would be characterized driver behavior under naturalistic driving experiences with respect to critical parameters related to freeway driving, including target speed selection, speed change accelerations, lane changing behavior, following distance, response times, and emergency stopping behavior. Analysis of the data could provide the industry with methods for developing more accurate and sensitive traffic simulation models.

• Assessing the Potential of Automated Transit Services and Effective Pedestrian/Bicycle Facilities on Urban Travel Patterns - Community-level transit (serving people where they live, and connecting them efficiently to activity centers in their community and to regional transit services for longer trips without imposing a significant penalty in terms of travel time, reliability or cost) and a comprehensive network of non-motorized travel facilities have the potential to create dramatic changes in travel behavior and patterns. This research will assess what service levels and network changes are necessary for dramatic changes in overall travel and model the impacts of reasonable (even if not currently feasible) potential cases. If successful, this research could provide a foundation for transportation and community design policy as well as the provision for future types of services.

The Broad Agency Announcement (number DTFH61-09-R-00004) is open until 4:00 pm EST, February 4, 2009 and is posted on www.FedBizOpps.gov at https://www.fbo.gov/index?tab=core&s=opportunity&mode=form&id=bd812311031109d66aafc73ceaff2610. For more information about the EAR Program, please contact David Kuehn at (202) 493-3414 (email: david.Kuehn@dot.gov) or Terry Halkyard at (202) 493-3467 (email: terry.halkyard@dot.gov). For more information about the solicitation process, please contact Contracting Officer: Benjamin Zaslow at (202) 366-6991 (email: Benjamin.Zaslow@dot.gov).