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U.S. DOT FY 2026 Phase I Pre-Solicitation Q&A



5/29/26 Update: The Pre-solicitation is now closed. Topic questions are no longer being accepted. * * *

This U.S. DOT Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Pre-solicitation Q&A Forum provides small businesses an opportunity to submit clarifying questions on the topics published in the U.S. DOT Fiscal Year (FY) 2026 Phase I Pre-Solicitation. Questions will be answered by the Technical Experts/Topic Authors at the U.S. DOT Operating Administrations during this period. Questions shall be limited to improving the understanding of a particular topic's requirements and should not share proposal ideas nor proprietary information.

The U.S. DOT’s FY 2026 Pre-Solicitation period is April 29, 2026, through May 29, 2026, at 5:00 pm Eastern Time (ET). Only questions posted within this period will be responded to.

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Search: Browse the existing questions by category to find the topic you are interested in and to see if your question has already been addressed. If you see a question, you are also interested in, you can add a vote to the question, or leave a comment.

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  1. Select the research topic your question is related to from the drop-down menu that appears when you begin typing.
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Please note, all comments will be public information. Potential offerors shall not include in the question(s) or comment(s) any information that they do not wish to be made public. Telephone inquiries or meeting requests will not be addressed and may be removed. The U.S. DOT shall not respond to requests for advice or guidance on any offeror’s solution to any SBIR topic and shall not consider any submitted materials other than questions.

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229 results found

  1. Event Prediction vs Traffic Prediction

    Does DOT consider prediction of precursor events (vehicle disablements, overheating vehicles, roadside incidents, parking overflow, cargo issues) to be within scope if they materially affect freight corridor performance?

    1 vote

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  2. Integration with Traffic Management Centers

    Should Phase I concepts demonstrate how predictive outputs could integrate with TMC, ATMS, 511, or existing DOT operational workflows, or is standalone analytics sufficient?

    1 vote

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  3. Truck Parking as a Corridor Variable

    Should truck parking availability, truck parking utilization, rest-area saturation, or queue spillback conditions be considered relevant predictive variables for freight corridor intelligence models?

    1 vote

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  4. Corridor Intervention / Actionability

    For Topic 26-OS2, is the desired outcome limited to prediction, or is DOT also interested in systems that recommend or trigger operational interventions (e.g., routing adjustments, dynamic parking utilization, traveler messaging, dispatch actions, or corridor management responses)?

    1 vote

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  5. Public Benefit and Safety Impact 

    For Topic 26-OS1, should Phase I applicants define how the proposed predictive safety analytics framework may support measurable public safety benefits, even if actual incident reduction is expected to be validated in Phase II or later phases?

    2 votes

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  6. Use of Voluntary Carrier Data

    For Topic 26-OS1, should applicants clearly define how voluntary carrier data will be collected, protected, minimized, anonymized, and separated from any enforcement, compliance, underwriting, or employment-related decision-making?

    2 votes

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  7. Phase II Transition and Pilot Readiness

    For Topic 26-OS1, what level of Phase II transition planning is expected in Phase I? Should applicants identify potential pilot partners, data-sharing pathways, validation environments, commercialization users, and deployment risks as part of the Phase I final report?

    2 votes

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  8. Phase I Proof-of-Concept Deliverable Expectations

    For Topic 26-OS1, should Phase I result primarily in a validated system architecture and proof-of-concept design, or is DOT expecting an early working prototype with sample dashboard screens, test data, and preliminary safety-indicator outputs?

    2 votes

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  9. Explainable AI Expectations

    For Topic 26-OS1, what level of explainability is expected in Phase I? Would reason codes, contributing-factor summaries, and transparent indicator logic be sufficient, or should applicants include a more formal explainable AI methodology?

    2 votes

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  10. Safety analytics validation methodology

    For Topic 26-OS1, how should Phase I applicants validate the safety analytics concept: technical feasibility of data harmonization, predictive model logic, explainability, privacy controls, stakeholder usability, or measurable safety-risk reduction potential?

    2 votes

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  11. Cybersecurity and data protection

    For Topic 26-OS1, are there specific cybersecurity or data protection expectations for Phase I Trusted Intermediary architectures using proprietary carrier, telematics, maintenance, or transportation operations data, such as NIST SP 800-171, FISMA, FedRAMP, CMMC, encryption, access control, or audit-log expectations?

    2 votes

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  12. Non-enforcement / non-underwriting boundary

    For Topic 26-OS1, should applicants explicitly state that the proposed safety analytics tool is intended for voluntary safety improvement and decision support only, and is not intended to make enforcement, employment, insurance underwriting, or automated compliance determinations?

    2 votes

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  13. Public safety records integration

    For Topic 26-OS1, does Phase I require actual integration of public safety records, or is it acceptable to define the architecture, data-mapping approach, and future integration pathway for combining voluntary industry data with public safety datasets in Phase II?

    2 votes

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  14. Proactive safety indicators

    For Topic 26-OS1, should Phase I applicants identify and test specific candidate proactive safety indicators, such as telematics patterns, vehicle health, maintenance trends, weather exposure, infrastructure conditions, and operational risk factors, or is Phase I intended primarily to define the framework for selecting and validating those indicators?

    2 votes

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  15. 1. Use of anonymized, aggregated, or simulated commercial data

    For Topic 26-OS1, may Phase I proof-of-concept work use anonymized, aggregated, or simulated commercial transportation datasets to demonstrate the Trusted Intermediary architecture and safety analytics approach when live carrier data-sharing agreements are still under development?

    2 votes

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  16. Would operational advisory systems designed to support emergency-incident roadway coordination and responder convergence?

    For Topic 26-FH1, would operational advisory systems designed to support emergency-incident roadway coordination and responder convergence through real-time human-centric guidance be considered responsive to the topic objectives for congestion mitigation and localized traffic operations?

    1 vote

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  17. For this topic, does transportation safety include assuring the essential navigational signals that GNSS depends on?

    One of the growing threats to aviation, maritime, and ground transportation is the increasingly vulnerable state of the navigational signals these systems depend on. GNSS threats are on the rise, with low-cost spoofers and jammers (available for as little as $50) now capable of compromising the navigational capabilities of large shipping vessels and commercial aircraft. This challenge is difficult to address, as the assets that defend against such spoofing and jamming can cost thousands of dollars at minimum, placing them out of reach for most operators across the U.S. transportation network.

    It would seem that a solution that could solve…

    2 votes

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  18. Verified mobility-event data

    Would verified mobility-event data generated by a controlled commercial passenger transportation fleet be considered an eligible voluntary industry data source for Phase I research, if the data is privacy-preserving and used to develop proactive safety indicators rather than to fund transportation operations?

    2 votes

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  19. Real-Time Operator Information

    What level of emphasis, if any, is placed on real-time operator or driver identity verification, credentialing, and risk scoring as inputs to the predictive safety analytics engine? Are there specific privacy, security, or audit-trail requirements the solution would need to address when handling personnel identity data within the Trusted Intermediary framework?

    4 votes

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  20. Topic 26-FH1: Edge Artificial Intelligence Vehicle-to-Everything (AI-V2X)

    Does the topic seek only vehicle-centric V2X solutions, or would deployable or infrastructure-based edge nodes that provide resilient communications (including failover in degraded or disaster-response environments) also be considered within scope?"

    1 vote

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