National Center for Excellence for Rural Road Safety

Submit Questions to Ryan.Buck@dot.gov with cc to HCFA-32SRI@dot.gov.

The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) intends to enter into a cooperative agreement with a single entity to operate and maintain the National Center for Excellence for Rural Road Safety (Rural Safety Center). The focus of the Center is providing technical assistance, information sharing, and training on rural road safety for state, local, and tribal road owners and their stakeholders. A secondary portion of the Center's mission is to conduct research supporting rural safety and surface transportation safety.

Montana State University, Western Transportation Institute has been operating as the Rural Safety Center since 2014. The period of performance will end December 31, 2021, and FHWA intends to award a new cooperative agreement to transition the Rural Safety Center to a new entity.

Activities should include:

• Coordinate with FHWA safety units to identify what training objectives are most critical for target audiences, and design outreach activities and materials with an emphasis on improving the overall understanding of safety data, analysis, evaluations, and investment decision-making
• Provide training and education to support transportation professionals in the advancement of evidence-based decision-making
• Expand the availability, access to, and understanding of tools and information required to make data-driven safety decisions
• Include a significant focus on rural road safety to address the unique challenges of applying evidence-based decision-making for rural roads
• Provide for a focused and disciplined approach to address the specific safety data and information needs of state, local, and tribal road owners
• Provide innovative methods of delivery for training, education, technology deployment, and communication to rural safety partners
• Identify and engage state, local, and tribal partners who have successful educational efforts for roadway and rural road safety to more broadly disseminate advanced transportation safety techniques and innovations in both rural safety areas and urban communities
• Develop and implement a marketing and communication plan for the Rural Safety Center's transportation safety products and services

A more detailed statement of work is provided in the application instructions.

Eligibility is unrestricted and open to all interested parties.

Anticipated award amount:

• Base period (Years 1 and 2) - $1,876,966.42
• Year 3 - $980,545.42
• Year 4 - $1,007,409.21
• Year 3 - $1,035,078.95

Links to the full announcement and online application process are available through grants.gov. The application instructions will be found on the related documents tab.

FHWA requests that all interested applicants confirm their intent to submit an application. Email the letter of intent to Ryan Buck by July 18, 2021.