San Diego Freight Resilience Plan

Solicitation No.

9347438652

Type / RFx

RFP

Status

Active

Level

local

Published Date

July 10, 2026

Due Date

August 6, 2026

NAICS Code

541690AI guide

Jurisdiction

SANDAG

State

California

Agency

SANDAG

Requesting proposals to develop the San Diego Freight Resilience Plan under the direction of and in coordination with SANDAG. The Project is funded through the Caltrans Sustainable Transportation Planning Grant Strategic Partnerships program. The project will develop a Plan and implementation toolkit that will guide the San Diego region and its interregional partners... **Solicitation Type**: RFP - Request for Proposal (Formal) **Source ID**: PU.AG.USA.1309051.C20425426 **Piggyback Contract**: No **Questions are submitted online**: Yes **Bid Submission Type**: Electronic Bid Submission **Owner Organization**: SANDAG **Solicitation Number**: SOL1618054 **Reference Number**: 0000430249 **Pricing**: In attached document **Bid Documents List**: | Item Name | Description | Mandatory | Limited to 1 file | |---|---|---|---| | Bid Documents | Documents defining the proposal | Yes | No | **Pre-Bidding Events**: Event: Prebid Conference | Date: 07/23/2026 05:15 PM EDT | Location: https://teams.microsoft.com/meet/214113390290967?p=SDhJ8ivDjUPfm4y1HI **Questions and Answers**: | Question | Answer | |---|---| | Do the letters of commitment from subconsultants count against the 20-page limit, or can they be placed in an appendix? | No, subconsultant Letters of Commitment do not count toward the maximum page limit and can be submitted in an appendix. | | For the exercise, is it a requirement to use the Homeland Security Exercise and Evaluation Program (HSEEP)? | The THIRA should be conducted in accordance with HSEEP doctrine and aligned with FEMA and CAL OES guidance. The tabletop exercise does not require full HSEEP compliance but should ideally be modeled as scenario-based and designed to validate THIRA outcomes. | | Is an After-Action Report and/or Improvement Plan (IP) required in HSEEP or another preferred format? | A formal HSEEP-compliant AAR/IP is not required for this project. The THIRA will be conducted in accordance with HSEEP to ensure it is positioned to support potential FEMA funding opportunities for regionally applicable threats. The tabletop exercise deliverable should provide a summary of key findings and recommendations to inform the Implementation Strategy; no specific format is required. | | The insurance requirements included in Section IX of the Standard Services Agreement refer to ISO forms. Since our firm’s insurance carrier does not use ISO forms, would SANDAG modify the language in each instance where it references an ISO form to add, “or equivalent.”? | The Standard Services Agreement is a draft document and will be finalized after contract award. The requirement is to comply with the intent of the Insurance Services Office 2013 Edition or latest revision available. Commercial insurance should match ("conforming") the coverage in the referenced forms. Please refer to your insurance provider for clarification, if needed. | | According to Section IX(O) of the Standard Services Agreement the Professional Liability policy shall cover losses arising out of pollution incidents. Pollution coverage is not provided by our Professional Liability policy as this is not related to the services provided by the company. As such would SANDAG accept the following modification to the text: Policy to cover losses arising from wrongful acts and pollution incidents whenever committed in the performance of professional services under this contract. | Yes, additionally, the Standard Services Agreement is a draft document and will be finalized after contract award. | | Will SANDAG allow for the minimum policy limits set forth in Section IX(O) to be met by application of Consultant’s excess/umbrella liability policy? | SANDAG will review exception requests such as this on on a case-by-case basis to the awarded vendor. | | Will SANDAG consider modifying the indemnification language in Section XI(A) as follows: With regard to the Consultant’s performance in connection with or incidental to this Agreement, Consultant agrees to defend, indemnify, protect and hold SANDAG and its directors, officers, and employees as well as any additional insured identified in the Agreement or related Task Order, harmless from and against any and all claims asserted or liability established for damages or injuries to any person or property, including injury to Consultant’s or its subcontractors’ employees, agents, or officers, which arise from or are connected with or are caused or claimed to be caused by the negligent, reckless, or willful acts or omissions negligence, recklessness, or willful misconduct of Consultant and its subcontractors and their agents, officers, or employees, in performing the work or services herein, or the breach of any representation, warranty, covenant or obligation of Consultant and/or its subcontractors associated with the Project under this Agreement, and all expenses of investigating and defending against same, including reasonable attorney’s fees and costs; provided, however, that Consultant’s duty to indemnify and hold harmless shall not include any claims or liability arising from the established sole negligence or willful misconduct of SANDAG, its directors, agents, officers, or employees. | Please see response to Question 6. | | Will SANDAG consider adding the following language to Section XI(B) to clarify that the Consultant is not responsible for indemnifying against certain infringement claims to the extent caused by SANDAG? Provided further, the foregoing indemnity shall not apply if the claim results from: (1) SANDAG’s alteration of a deliverable, such that said deliverable in its altered form infringes upon any presently existing U.S. letters patent or copyright; or (2) the use of a deliverable in combination with other material not provided by Consultant when such use in combination infringes upon an existing U.S. letter patent or copyright; or (3) the use of a deliverable in a manner inconsistent with the specifications provided by the Consultant. | Until the Standard Services Agreement is finalized in conjunction with the awarded vendor, SANDAG will not accept the aforesaid language, however, exceptions from any awarded vendor will be reviewed and considered on a case-by-case basis. | | Would SANDAG agree that the Consultant's services under this Agreement would not require access to, creation of, or processing of Sensitive Information as that term is defined in the RFP, and if so, would SANDAG agree that the requirements of Section IX of the Special Provisions for Service and/or Equipment Agreements will not apply to Consultant under this contract? | At this time, it cannot be determined whether the Consultant's services would require access to, creation of, or processing of Sensitive Information as that term is defined in the RFP. Until such time that the Standard Services Agreement is finalized in conjunction with the awarded vendor, SANDAG will not waive this requirement. | | Is it permissible for proposers to add subtasks or additional deliverable milestones to the Cost Proposal form that could serve as additional fixed price payment milestones? | Yes, proposers may add subtasks or additional deliverable milestones to the Cost Proposal form. | | From Zurich Resilient Solutions: For the THIRA TT exercise is that being funded separately or included in RFP? | The Freight Asset & Threat and Hazard Identification and Risk Assessment (THIRA) Analysis tabletop exercise will be/is included in the funding for the contracted services. | | From Zurich Resilient Solutions: Will you be sharing high level information on the geolocation stuff for goods and people and are they separate or combined? | SANDAG will share all geolocation information gathered in initial efforts as part of the onboarding process for the awarded consultant. We anticipate that goods and people will be separate initially but may likely need to be integrated during the project. | | How will you evaluate optional tasks? | Optional tasks shall be priced separately in the Cost Proposal and briefly described in the Proposal. Optional task pricing will not be included in the evaluated cost for scoring purposes; SANDAG will review it for consistency with the project budget and scope. SANDAG may exercise some, all, or none of the optional tasks at its discretion, subject to available funding and approvals from Caltrans and project partners. Proposers should not assume inclusion of optional tasks in developing staffing plans or pricing base scope tasks. | | Do you want financial statements from subconsultants as well? | Subconsultant's financial statements are not required for proposals to be considered responsive, however, they should be available if requested for clarification. Please refer to RFP Section V. L. Establishment of Proposer's Fiscal Responsibility for details. | | Is there an anticipated period of performance? | Yes, please refer to Page 1 of the RFP (page i) "Contract Duration." The period of performance runs from Notice To Proceed through June 30, 2028, with the draft of the final deliverable completed by May 31, 2028. The Caltrans grant agreement performance period also ends June 30, 2028; draft deliverables are due in advance of that date to allow for SANDAG review, iteration, acceptance, and grant closeout. The schedule in the RFP reflects NTP-relative timing; actual dates will be set at contract execution. | | Does SANBAG already have a tool/system they are using to map regional critical freight assets and humans or will selected consultant provide this? | SANDAG does not intend for the consultant to build a mapping platform. Instead, the consultant is expected to leverage existing regional geospatial resources maintained by SANDAG and Caltrans District 11, including Transportation Management Center systems, while developing compatible freight asset and hazard layers. Existing tools are most commonly hosted in ArcGIS Online environments. The mapping should support emergency response and freight movement decision-making by identifying critical freight assets, informing resource pre-positioning and rerouting strategies, and supporting multiple hazard scenarios rather than a single event. Proposers should identify any assumptions regarding the platform environment, data refresh, licensing, hosting, and long-term maintenance responsibilities. SANDAG and project partners welcome approaches that deliver the greatest value within the established scope and budget, and will work with the selected consultant to refine subtask-level approach at the outset of the project. | | Define what critical freight assets would need to be included: o Warehouses o Parts o Transport vehicle o Needed Utility infrastructures. o Actual goods o Transportation infrastructure o What humans would be included? o Please add anything else o Will data processing sites be included? | SANDAG is using "critical freight assets" in this context as functional rather than categorical: an asset is critical where its loss or inaccessibility would meaningfully impair the region's ability to move, store, or distribute goods during and after a disruption. Anticipated categories include: networks; facilities; vehicles and equipment; enabling systems; information systems; commodities; and workforce and affected populations, understood at a population level rather than as individuals. Asset identification is expected to align with the FEMA community lifelines framework and be validated against the threat and hazard work under this effort. SANDAG recognizes that much freight asset and operational data is privately held, and that data availability will shape the resulting inventory. This list is intentionally not exhaustive; the Baseline and Barriers Report and stakeholder engagement will surface additional assets and dependencies, which SANDAG and project partners will work through with the selected consultant. | | Will non-Natural Catastrophe, Physical damage threats be included, such as cyber, Pandemic, and toxic gas be included? | Yes. Consistent with THIRA methodology, the assessment is not limited to natural hazards or physical damage. Technological and human-caused threats are included where they could disrupt regional goods movement. These threats will be addressed at the level of consequence to the freight system rather than through cybersecurity vulnerability assessment, epidemiological modeling, or hazardous materials risk assessment, and existing partner agency assessments will be used as inputs rather than replicated. Threat identification will be a coordinated effort and aligned with existing regional assessments. SANDAG and project partners will work with the selected consultant to prioritize threat scenarios that deliver the greatest analytical value within the project parameters. | | During 7/23 it seemed as if quake may be the focus for the TT exercise. Is this the case? | No. The earthquake scenario referenced during the July 23 pre-proposal meeting was offered as an illustrative example, not as a predetermined focus. Tabletop exercise scenarios have not been selected. SANDAG, project partners, and the Regional Resilience Task Force will work with the selected consultant to identify scenarios that best exercise regional freight vulnerabilities and produce the most useful findings, informed by the threat and hazard efforts. | | How would SANBAG like the threat impact analyzed financial, human safety, business resilience and etc. | SANDAG expects impacts to be evaluated across several dimensions, not a single metric. At a minimum, these would include continuity of essential goods delivery, public health and safety, and how long a disruption lasts before normal operations resume. Economic effects matter as well, though at a regional business-continuity level. Approximations are sufficient for our purposes; full economic impact modeling is outside this scope. Communities already vulnerable to service disruption, including the Portside environmental justice communities, etc., warrant specific attention. The purpose is prioritization. Impact findings need to be usable by the FRTF and partner agencies in deciding where to focus mitigation investment, which means they should be comparable across scenarios rather than precise in absolute terms. Final criteria and any weighting will be set early in the project with the consultant and project partners. | | Please describe how consultant will support SANDAG staff in building consensus on roles and responsibilities across regional, interregional, binational, and other applicable entities before, during, and after crises. | The consultant will support this through facilitation and documentation, working through the Regional Resilience Task Force. SANDAG staff will convene the FRTF and lead stakeholder relationships; the consultant is expected to structure the conversation and capture where agreement exists and where it does not. The anticipated product is a recommended roles and responsibilities framework, a RACI or equivalent, organized around relevant ESF categories, particularly ESF-1 and ESF-7, across mitigation, response, and recovery. These are recommendations, not assignments of authority, and need not be exhaustive: the test is whether EOC staff can identify who leads a rerouting decision and who needs to be at the table. Where authority is unclear or overlapping, documenting that is a useful finding. This should build on existing documented roles, including but not limited to the County's Multi-Jurisdictional Hazard Mitigation Plan and SANDAG's Border Resilience Plan, both currently underway. | | For this task will SANDBAG or selected consultant develop priority of phased near-, medium-, and long-term action timelines outlining how FRTF stakeholders will facilitate progress toward recommended projects and policies. | The consultant will develop the phased near-, medium-, and long-term action timelines as part of the implementation strategy, building on the technical analysis and FRTF input. Sequencing and priority will be set jointly; SANDAG and project partners will work with the FRTF to confirm which actions come first and which entities are positioned to carry them. The consultant works alongside project partners to recommend, structure, and document solutions. | | For project prioritization criteria matrix (as an appendix to the final Plan) what metric will be used for prioritization | Prioritization criteria have not been fixed and are expected to be developed with the consultant and the FRTF. SANDAG anticipates a multi-criteria matrix rather than a single score, weighing consequence of failure and criticality to essential goods movement, feasibility and implementation readiness, cost and funding eligibility, the number of jurisdictions or lifelines affected, and benefit to communities disproportionately exposed to service disruption. Criteria should be transparent enough that stakeholders can see why an action ranks where it does, and flexible enough to remain usable as conditions change after the Plan is adopted. Scoring will be qualitative or scaled rather than quantitative modeling. | | The RFP appears to require a cost-plus style breakdown of subcontractor costs as part of the cost proposal. Some specialized subconsultants maintain proprietary cost structures and are only able to provide fixed-price subcontract amounts and/or fully loaded billing rates rather than detailed breakdowns of labor costs, overhead, profit, and other internal cost components. Would SANDAG consider a proposal responsive if a subconsultant provides a fixed-price amount and/or fully loaded rates in lieu of a detailed cost buildup? If not, what minimum level of cost detail is required from subcontractors? | Yes, SANDAG would consider a proposal responsive if a subconsultant provides a fixed-price amount. SANDAG is not requesting a cost-plus or cost buildup for subcontractors. The Cost Proposal is intended to capture the firm fixed-price amount for each task identified in the cost proposal template. Proposers shall provide the total fixed-price amount associated with each task, inclusive of all costs necessary to perform that task (e.g., labor, overhead, profit, subcontractor costs, and other direct or indirect expenses). SANDAG is not requesting a detailed breakdown of labor hours, hourly rates, overhead, profit, or other internal cost components for either the prime consultant or subcontractors. | **Addendums**: | Addendum | Date | Note | |---|---|---| | Addendum No. 1 | 07/14/2026 02:54 PM EDT | | **Communications**: - Communication No.1: Uploaded the pre-bid presentation as stated in the RFP. — Pre-Bid Presentation.pdf - Communication No.1: Uploaded the pre-bid presentation as stated in the RFP. — SANDAG Grant Application.pdf

1. July 10, 2026Published
2. August 6, 2026Responses Due