Fiscal Year 2025 Competitive Funding Opportunity: Bus Safety and Accessibility Research Program

<NOTICE> DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION <SUBAGY>Federal Transit Administration</SUBAGY> <SUBJECT>Fiscal Year 2025 Competitive Funding Opportunity: Bus Safety and Accessibility Research Program</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Federal Transit Administration (FTA), Department of Transportation (DOT). <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Notice of funding opportunity (NOFO). <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The Federal Transit Administration (FTA) announces the opportunity to submit applications for the Bus Safety and Accessibility Research Program for up to $10,000,000 under the Public Transportation Innovation Program in multiple fiscal years. The strategic goal for this program is to make existing and new buses safer for their operators and vulnerable road users, and safer and more accessible for their passengers. The Bus Safety and Accessibility Research Program seeks proposals to research standard bus designs, safety innovations and systems, and bus compartments that support these safety and accessibility goals. Additionally, this NOFO will require the development of detailed design specifications and production of a prototype that is available through a retrofit on existing buses and for installation in new buses. </SUM> <DATES> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Complete proposals must be submitted electronically through the <E T="03">grants.gov</E> “APPLY” function by 11:59 p.m. eastern time on January 17, 2025. Prospective applicants should initiate the process by registering on the <E T="03">grants.gov</E> website promptly to ensure completion of the application process before the submission deadline. Instructions for applying can be found on FTA's website at <E T="03">https://www.transit.dot.gov/</E> howtoapply and in the “FIND” module of <E T="03">grants.gov</E> . The funding opportunity ID is FTA-2025-003-TRI. Mail and fax submissions will not be accepted. </DATES> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Maria Roell, FTA Office of Research, Demonstration, and Innovation, phone (202) 366-9214, or email: <E T="03">maria.roell@dot.gov.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <GPOTABLE COLS="2" OPTS="L2,nj,p1,8/9,i1" CDEF="xs86,r200"> <TTITLE>Summary Overview of Key Information: FTA Bus Safety and Accessibility Research Competitive Funding Opportunity</TTITLE> <CHED H="1"> </CHED> <CHED H="1"> </CHED> <ROW> <ENT I="01">Issuing Agency</ENT> <ENT>Federal Transit Administration, U.S. Department of Transportation.</ENT> </ROW> <ROW> <ENT I="01">Program Overview</ENT> <ENT>To establish a Bus Safety and Accessibility Research Program under 49 U.S.C. 5312 to research standard designs and prototypes to make existing and new buses safer for their operators and vulnerable road users, and safer and more accessible for their passengers.</ENT> </ROW> <ROW> <ENT I="01">Eligible Applicants</ENT> <ENT>Departments, agencies, and instrumentalities of the Government, including Federal laboratories; State and local governmental entities; providers of public transportation; private or non-profit organizations; institutions of higher education; and technical and community colleges.</ENT> </ROW> <ROW> <ENT I="01">Eligible Project</ENT> <ENT>Engineering, design, and protype production of a bus or bus components that improve safety of operator and VRUs and increases accessibility for passengers.</ENT> </ROW> <ROW> <ENT I="01">Funding Amount</ENT> <ENT>$10,000,000. Additional funds made available prior to project selection may be allocated to eligible projects.</ENT> </ROW> <ROW> <ENT I="01">Deadline</ENT> <ENT>January 17, 2025 at 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time.</ENT> </ROW> <ROW> <ENT I="01">Cost share</ENT> <ENT>The maximum Federal share of project costs under this program is 80 percent.</ENT> </ROW> </GPOTABLE> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Table of Contents</HD> <EXTRACT> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">A. Program Description</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">B. Federal Award Information</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">C. Eligibility Information</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">D. Application and Submission Information</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">E. Application Review Information</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">F. Federal Award Administration Information</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">G. Federal Awarding Agency Contacts</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">H. Other Information</FP> </EXTRACT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">A. Program Description</HD> Under FTA's Public Transportation Innovation Program (49 U.S.C. 5312), FTA may make grants or enter into contracts or cooperative agreements for research, development, demonstration, and deployment projects and evaluation of research and technology of national significance to public transportation. This notice of funding opportunity (NOFO) (Federal Assistance Listing: 20.531) is issued under this authority. The Bus Safety and Accessibility Research Program addresses critical safety issues and technology opportunities in public transit vehicle design. For this program accessibility refers to the ability of people with disabilities to: independently ascertain if an arriving bus is the one they intend to take; board; pay any fares or scan Paratransit ID cards; identify a seat or wheelchair accessible spot; secure any mobility equipment on the bus; receive any visual or audible stop announcements; identify the correct stop at which they intend to deboard; indicate by pressing buttons or communicating verbally with the driver that they would like to deboard at the next stop; and exit the vehicle without encountering any physical, communication, or attitudinal barriers. Critical safety issues include rising operator assaults, continued accessibility issues for people with disabilities in and around transit buses, the need to increase operator visibility and minimize blind spots to ensure safety around a bus for passengers, pedestrians, bicyclists, and all who encounter a transit vehicle. It addresses FTA's strategic goal of enhancing the safety of transit fleets. According to safety performance data reported to the National Transit Database (NTD), major event injuries per 100 million vehicle revenue miles are rising with non-rail modes having 273.94 injuries in 2022 and 302.82 injuries in 2023. It is essential that action is taken to reverse this trend. The strategic goal for this program is to make existing and new buses safer for their operators and vulnerable road users, and safer and more accessible for their passengers. The program objectives include research on bus designs, innovations, and technologies, as well as production of a prototype that is available through a retro fit on existing buses and for installation in new buses. The program's key focus areas are: • <E T="03">Driver Safety Systems</E> —Changes made to the transit vehicle and technology upgrades that protect the operator and enhance the safety of those outside of the vehicle including VRUs. • <E T="03">Passenger Safety Systems</E> —Changes made to the transit vehicle and technology upgrades that protect and increase accessibility of the passengers. All applicants will also be expected to produce results that follow three major principles. These principles represent the values on which FTA will judge whether objectives have been met. • Partnerships: ○ Recipients will collaborate across multiple industry sectors including all or some of these priority groups: <FP SOURCE="FP-1"> Transit Vehicle Manufacturers (TVMs)</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1"> Transit Agencies</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1"> Transit Labor Unions</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1"> Disability Organizations</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1"> Transit riders</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1"> Domestic and International Research Groups</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1"> Component Manufacturers</FP> • Widely Implementable: ○ Proposals are encouraged to be innovative but must consider risks to implementation and interoperability to ensure nationwide relevancy and adoption. Proposals should be able to be adopted quickly, on a wide scale. ○ Deliverables should be applicable to current and new 35- and 40-ft or articulated bus models that have passed Altoona testing, comply with all other applicable Federal requirements, and are manufactured by companies eligible to compete for FTA-funded contracts. <HD SOURCE="HD2">• Economic Vitality</HD> ○ Recipients will support the U.S. industrial base by complying with Buy America. Recognizing Executive Order 14005, “Ensuring the Future Is Made in All of America by All of America's Workers” (86 FR 7475); proposed projects must support economic vitality at the national and regional level, including advancing domestic industry and promoting domestic development of intellectual property. Applicants must note how they will incorporate the key focus areas, meet program objectives, and follow program principles. Applications should include performance standards and measures for ensuring the success of each key focus area with a specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound task plan. These measures should show minimum performance specifications and a quality assurance surveillance plan to ensure quality. Applicants must show a detailed understanding of the needs and opportunities of this program. <HD SOURCE="HD2">Building on Previous Research</HD> This NOFO seeks innovations that will lead to a safer more accessible bus, as well as a design and production of a prototype that is available through a retrofit on existing buses and for installation in new buses. It builds upon previous research by FTA and the Transit Cooperative Research Program, especially regarding increasing protection for bus operators through secure bus compartments. The Bus Operator Compartment Redesign Program (BCP) was awarded in 2020 to improve operator and public safety. Key findings included issues with current bus operator compartment designs, such as ineffective barriers, large blind spo ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 60k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━