Research and Demonstration Projects Supporting the Development of High Speed and Intercity Passenger Rail Service

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The Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) has a long, successful history of supporting the development of advanced rail technologies to meet the transportation needs of the country. Over the last few decades, the FRA has provided funding and technical support to facilitate research and to stimulate development of new equipment, infrastructure, and testing technologies to enhance the nation’s rail transportation capabilities. Today, the United States government is committed to developing a world-class, high speed rail system that meets the growing transportation needs of the country. Supporting this effort, the FRA is tasked with facilitating the development of a capable, safe, efficient, and integrated network of intercity passenger rail service, including high speed rail service, as described in the Vision for High Speed Rail in America, announced by President Obama on April 16, 2009. The FRA’s Office of Research and Development will lead the effort to develop the advanced technologies that will bring this vision to reality. The FRA’s Office of Research and Development is leading the development of new technologies that will form the foundation of the nation’s high speed rail system. The objective of this Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) is to solicit from unrestricted sources a variety of basic and applied technology research proposals to advance the state of the art in the high speed rail and intercity passenger service area. Projects shall be focused towards facilitating the development of technologies that can be used to achieve safe, efficient, and effective deployment of integrated passenger rail systems in the North American rail environment. Such technologies will: (1) Reduce the operational and program deployment risks associated with mixed use rail lines; (2) Improve safety by reducing human and technology failures; (3) Bring about capital cost reductions and economy in producing equipment and facilities; (4) Reduce operating costs of rail service by providing more efficient operations; (5) Improve the reliability of equipment and infrastructure components by reducing failures and/or reducing false failure detections; (6) Enhance the revenue-generating capability of high-speed operations by attracting greater ridership by reducing trip times, upgrading customer service quality, increasing reliability, or improving on time performance; (7) Enhance the social benefits and/or environmental aspects of high-speed rail; and (8) Facilitate the development of domestic manufacture of rail equipment and infrastructure components. Interested parties may submit proposals in accordance with the BAA-2010-1 package which may be downloaded or printed from the following Internet website: http://www.fra.dot.gov. Follow the selection of “Policy & Development” (from upper left home page menu), “Funds for Research,” and then “Broad Agency Announcement.” BAA-2010-1 is not available in paper copy. BAA-2010-1 supersedes BAA 2009-1 which has been closed.

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