Fiscal Note
The proposed resolution authorizes a noncompetitive sole source contract for transportation analytics software to support MPO planning activities. The one-year contract has a cost of $131,000 and includes two additional one-year terms. Funding for the contract is included in MPO's 2022 adopted budget and in its 2023 budget request. Approximately 83% of the MPO's 2022 budget is supported by federal sources.
Title
Authorizing, on behalf of the Greater Madison MPO, a noncompetitive sole source contract for an initial one-year subscription renewal (with automatic renewal for two additional one-year terms unless notice is provided otherwise) to an online transportation data analytics software platform from StreetLight Data, Inc. to support MPO and City of Madison planning activities
Body
WHEREAS, the City of Madison is responsible for providing professional staff services to the Greater Madison MPO (“MPO”), the designated metropolitan planning organization for the Madison area, as provided for in the 2007 MPO designation agreement; and
WHEREAS, the City of Madison is the administrative and fiscal agent for the MPO and is a legally constituted entity under the laws of the State of Wisconsin and able to receive the federal and state grant funding, which covers around 84% of the MPO budget; and
WHEREAS, as the designated MPO for the Madison metropolitan area the Greater Madison MPO has responsibilities to perform metropolitan transportation planning and programming activities, including development of a long-range multi-modal regional transportation plan and transportation improvement program; and
WHEREAS, due to limitations in scale, cost, and time, traditional travel data collection methods alone are not sufficient to support effective transportation planning and project design given the rapidly changing transportation landscape as evidenced by the impact of COVID-19 on travel, and transportation professionals are therefore turning to “big data” sources from mobile devices and connected vehicles to support planning for the future in our dynamic transportation world; and
WHEREAS, the MPO has had a subscription to StreetLight InSight, StreetLight Data’s on-demand transportation analytics software platform for three years to support MPO planning activities, including the development of its travel forecast model, completion of the update to the long-range regional transportation plan, and special studies, including those related to traffic safety and the impact of COVID-19 on travel; and
WHEREAS, the original subscription was purchased through the MPO’s consultant hired to develop a new and improved regional travel forecast model to support that project, and the city has subsequently renewed the subscription two times for additional one-year terms, and just recently extended the ’21-’22 contract for two months to allow time to secure an agreement for a multi-year renewal; and
WHEREAS, the MPO and other city of Madison staff have also used the transportation analytics platform to provide data to support city of Madison projects and planning studies, including the Bus Rapid Transit project, Metro Transit Network Design Study, Vision Zero Initiative, and Complete & Green Streets Study, and most recently the city Parks staff have used for analysis of use of city parks; and
WHEREAS, MPO staff have created a StreetLight Data users group of city staff to share information on uses of the platform and provide peer-to-peer learning opportunities leveraging the expertise on the platform by staff that has been developed over the past three years; and
WHEREAS, StreetLight Data’s StreetLight InSight® transportation analysis tool offers many unique capabilities that differentiate it from competing vendors, including:
• Ability to run and interactively visualize unique customized projects for areas in a cloud-based web platform to understand travel patterns, traffic behavior, and demographic information about the composite group of travelers being analyzed;
• Use of data derived from two location-based services (LBS) data sources and navigation-GPS data sources, as well as many contextual data sets to enrich the metric output;
• Use of an analytic data processing engine, Route Science, that algorithmically integrates spatial data points from multiple types of devices (cell phones, connected cars, fleet management systems, smart phone applications, etc.) into trips and activities, and also contextualizes this Big Data with conventional data, including Census data and traffic counters;
• Availability of data on multiple modes of travel in the platform, including motor vehicle, medium and heavy duty trucks, public transit buses, bicycles, and pedestrians;
• Availability of estimated average annual, monthly, and hourly travel volume (AADT) counts for almost all roadways in the U.S. by algorithmically combining five data sources (GPS, two sets of LBS data, Census data, and continuous traffic count stations);
• Ability to estimate daily vehicle miles of travel (VMT) for different areas or roadway networks;
• Ability to customize parameters in the platform to get data on unique analysis zones customizable by time of day, day-part, specific dates, circuity, trip length, speed, duration, demographics, and general trip purpose; and
• Provision of additional, regular enhancements to the platform, including new features and functionality, at no additional cost to the subscriber; and
WHEREAS, MPO staff has or is using the StreetLight platform to support numerous MPO planning work, including the safety studies, Electric Vehicle Strategic Plan, equity analysis, transit and bicycle planning, and support Madison and other local community planning initiatives; and
WHEREAS, MPO staff has found StreetLight Data metrics to be highly accurate overall, the platform easy to use, and the customer service excellent, and the experience gained with the platform over the past three years will result in efficiencies from continued use rather than switching to another platform, which wouldn’t offer all of the capabilities of StreetLight InSight anyway; and
WHEREAS, the cost of the annual subscription renewal is $6,000 more than this past year ($131,000 after discount), but with a three-year commitment this price will be locked in for all three years, and 84% of the cost or $110,000 covered by federal/state grant funds; and
WHEREAS, the cost of the subscription renewal is included in the MPO’s approved 2022 operating budget and proposed 2023 budget, which is part of the Planning Division’s budget; and
WHEREAS, under MGO 4.26(4)(b) annual software contracts of more than $50,000 per year that are not competitively selected must be approved by the Common Council and must meet one of the exceptions to competitive bidding in MGO 4.26(4)(a); and
WHEREAS, for the reasons above and also spelled out in the attached noncompetitive selection request form, the StreetLight InSight® transportation analytics platform provides unique capabilities not offered by other vendors, thus meeting the exception of 4.26(4)(a)2., and continuing the subscription with the existing vendor is more economical on the basis of time and money, meeting the exception of 4.26(4)(a)7.
NOW, THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the Common Council authorizes the Mayor and City Clerk to sign a one-year renewal contract with automatic renewal for two additional one-year terms unless notice is provided otherwise on behalf of the Greater Madison MPO for $131,000 with StreetLight Data, Inc. for the purposes described above to support the MPO and city of Madison’s planning and project design activities, and other local community transportation planning efforts.