Clarus Multi-state Regional Demonstrations Concept of Operations

The summary for the Clarus Multi-state Regional Demonstrations Concept of Operations grant is detailed below. This summary states who is eligible for the grant, how much grant money will be awarded, current and past deadlines, Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance (CFDA) numbers, and a sampling of similar government grants. Verify the accuracy of the data FederalGrants.com provides by visiting the webpage noted in the Link to Full Announcement section or by contacting the appropriate person listed as the Grant Announcement Contact. If any section is incomplete, please visit the website for the DOT Federal Highway Administration, which is the U.S. government agency offering this grant.

Clarus Multi-state Regional Demonstrations Concept of Operations: The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) is planning to issue a Request for Applications (RFA) that will be published on or about October 1, 2006 at Internet address http://www.grants.gov under Funding Opportunity Number DTFH61-07-RA-00001. The solicitation will be issued to select one or more Cooperative Agreement award recipients to participate in a "Clarus Multi-state Regional Demonstration Concept of Operations". There is NO INCUMBENT CONTRACTOR OR AGREEMENT RECIPIENT. Eligibility: Competition for this procurement is limited to U. S. state government agencies for the prime award. (Note: This eligibility restriction covers the prime awardee only and does not extend to subawards under the resulting awards.) Also, to be eligible for award, applicant teams must demonstrate participation of state and/or local governments from a minimum of two U.S. states, or a U.S. state and Canadian province. Background: Clarus, which is Latin for "clear", is a FHWA initiative designed to collect, quality check and make available via the Internet, this nations public investments in atmospheric and pavement observations which support surface transportation operations. The progress of the Clarus Initiative has advanced to a stage in which the Government is seeking to conduct one or more Clarus Multi-state Regional Demonstrations. Through the Clarus Multi-state Regional Demonstrations the government aims to achieve the following objectives: (1) Demonstrate that the Clarus System functions as designed by incentivizing a large number of state and local agencies to contribute data from their Environmental Sensor Stations (ESS); (2) Enable proactive transportation system management through utilization of the Clarus System; and, (3) Provide an environment so that private sector service providers can innovate and create new and improved products that will benefit the public, academia and other private industries.This RFA for participating in a "Clarus Multi-state Regional Demonstration Concept of Operations" will be the first among several activities that the Government will initiate to carry out the full Clarus Multi-state Regional Demonstrations. Emphasis will be on demonstrating new and innovative uses of Clarus-based technologies and information. It is anticipated that the Demonstrations will span multiple procurements over a three-year period.Scope of Work: Under these planned Cooperative Agreement awards, Recipients will cooperate with FHWA to develop a well-articulated Concept of Operations. The Concept of Operations will describe the Recipients current capabilities and system characteristics with respect to the use of surface transportation weather information and its application to transportation system operations. The Concept of Operations will also describe an envisioned future state in which there are information products, services, tools and decision support mechanisms that fully incorporate Clarus-enabled surface weather information into transportation system operations. Additionally, the Recipients will prepare their surface weather observation owned and/or managed properties so that the weather and pavement observations are made available to the Clarus System.The resultant product of these planned Cooperative Agreements will be a Concept of Operations document for each Recipient, which conforms to systems engineering norms and practices and which can be delivered to private sector developers to produce effective "Business-to-Government" solutions. Such "Business-to-Government" solutions may entail actual products and tools that are consumed directly by state and local governments. In the creation of the Concept of Operations document, FHWA will support the Recipient(s) by performing configuration management of the information articulated by the Recipient(s). Such assistance will promote ease of development and greater reliability in future private sector supplied tools and services.Note: In a future separate procurement, the Government intends to competitively award one or more contracts to develop one or more of the solutions resulting under the planned Cooperative Agreements announced herein. The Concept of Operations documents developed under these planned Cooperative Agreements will establish for the future contractor(s) a foundation through which systems engineering and development can be performed.