Agency TRANSPORTATION DEPT

Contractor University of Minnesota

SWIFT Contract Number 48730

Project Name MnPass Modeling and Pricing Algorithm Enhancement

Project Number (if applicable) 99008W43

Summarize purpose of the contract, including why it was necessary: To produce a comprehensive platform for developing, evaluating, and optimizing the current and any alternative to the MnPASS algorithm. It will develop the relationship between maximizing vehicle throughput and travel time reliability, so that a clear policy decision can be made about how much to weight the travel time guarantee vs. the productivity of the lane. Different levels of travel time reliability (e.g. guaranteed free-flow time 95% of the time to free-flow time 99.99% of the time) will be associated with different levels of productivity.

Project Duration

Start Date Fri, 06/29/2012 - 00:00

Original end date Thu, 07/31/2014 - 00:00

Actual end date Tue, 06/09/2015 - 00:00

Did project finish on time? Yes

Total billable hours utilized (if applicable) {Empty}

Contract Amounts

Original contract: $150000.00

Amendments $0.0

Contract total $150000.00

Did project finish within budget? Yes

What was the funding source? 20% Trunk Highway/80% Federal

Is this a sole source contract? No

If this was a single source contract, explain why the agency determined there was only a single source for the services (if applicable) XXXXX

Evaluator Name Brian Kary

Evaluator Email Address Brian.Kary@state.mn.us

Evaluate the contractor's timeliness Below Average

Evaluate the contractor's quality Average

Evaluate the contractor's cost Average

Evaluate the contractor's overall performance Average

Would you engage the contractor's services again? Yes

Describe any negative action taken during the duration of this contract (i.e., termination, pursuit of suspension, etc.): Product Quality – Modeling results from the corridors did not match well with existing. In fairness to the research team, modeling the demand on HOT lanes is a very complicated process. A lot of progress was made in this research but more needs to be done.

Overall delivery of the project was behind schedule.

A preliminary paper called “HOT or Not” was released publicly without approval from MnDOT. Some of the content in the paper was taken from one of the early deliverables that had not been approved yet by MnDOT. More coordination between the research team and MnDOT needs to take place before documents are released.

Contract Adminstration: based on our Master Contract, all of the projects are to conform to the TAP Guidelines. The release of the paper and lack of communication was not related to Dr. Hourdos effort for this project. This contract administrator finds his responsiveness and effort to be exceptional. However, the Co-PI submitted the paper as a deliverable for the project and ignored the TAP Guidelines. All deliverables are to be approved by the TAP. The CO-PI has a history of not following the terms of the master contract and the terms of the agreements he signs. He is senior to Dr. Hourdos at the UMN, thus it is difficult for Dr. Hourdos to address these behaviors.

Please rate the overall experience with the contractor 3 - neutral