Public procurement notice: Periodic Indicative Notice Without Call For Competition
Published: 2016-02-27
Buyer: Network Rail Infrastructure Ltd
Country: UK
Contract type: Supplies
CPV classification: 31642000 | 34943000 | 35125100: Sensors | 38430000
Estimated value:  GBP

Technical requirements: Understanding the potential of using deployed optical fibre telecommunications infrastructure to provide cost-effective remote condition monitoring.
Network Rail, in supporting the Digital Railway programme, is exploring the potential of using its deployed optical fibre telecommunications infrastructure to provide cost-effective network-wide Remote Condition Monitoring (RCM) for efficient, reliable and safe rail operations.
Based on this assessment, we will determine whether or not to embark on further OJEU procurement actions to introduce distributed fibre sensing technologies to future procurement programmes.
There will be no payments ensuing for the information supplied by the OEMs. Also, there will be no payment for any technology demonstration activities performed by OEMs.
Network Rail, in supporting the Digital Railway programme, is exploring the potential of using its deployed optical fibre telecommunications infrastructure to provide cost-effective network-wide Remote Condition Monitoring (RCM) for efficient, reliable and safe rail operations.
Our investigations have identified optical fibre Distributed Fibre Sensing and in particular Distributed Acoustic Sensing (DAS) as strong technology contenders for addressing our RCM applications. The DAS technology is in use for some rail applications; however, our assessment is that for many of the applications the current products require extensive site-specific conditioning and despite this they often result in unacceptably high number of false-positives as the rail environment is acoustically challenging. There have been recent advances in DAS technology and signal processing which hold promise for meeting our operational rail RCM requirements; however these require extensive testing in a representative rail environment to enable development of suitable products.
A challenge for DAS Own Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) is their lack of access to suitable rail test environments for testing, optimisation and proving performance. For this reason, to facilitate development of suitable DAS systems for our rail applications we would like to select OEMs with promising DAS technology and offer them access to our Rail Innovation Development Centre RIDC Melton test track to test, develop and showcase reliable performance. For selection, the OEMs will have to demonstrate that their products are sufficiently mature (e.g. Technology Readiness Level (TRL) 5-6, as defined by the European Commission) to benefit from testing at RIDC Melton and that these activities will enable them to optimise performance to address our RCM requirements over our standard fibre-cable infrastructure. Also, that they will be willing to loan and install sample equipment for up to 12 months for carrying out tests as well as provide technical support and guidance to our technology team at no external cost to Network Rail. During the testing period Network Rail personnel will be available to facilitate and support on-site work.
Network Rail's aspiration is that this activity will help Network Rail to establish current DAS technology's TRL and based on this assessment determine whether or not to embark on further OJEU procurement actions for distributed fibre sensing systems' further proving, qualifying and deployment in operational rail environment (TRL 7-9).
The Request for Information (RFI) period will open on the date of publication of this notice and it will run for 8 weeks. At the end of this period all submissions will be reviewed. The OEMs meeting the criteria described above will be invited to enter into a dialogue and those interested in showcasing and testing their products will be offered an opportunity to demonstrate their DAS system operation over Network Rail's deployed fibre-cable infrastructure at RIDC Melton.
The test time and period will be at Network Rail's discretion and in particular will depend on the scheduling of other ongoing activities at RIDC Melton. The testing opportunity offered, for example, could involve an initial test period to identify performance limitations followed by further test opportunities to showcase system improvements addressing performance limitations identified in earlier tests. All testing under this PIN is expected to be completed by 31.3.2017 at the latest.
Assuming DAS technology can successfully address rail assets RCM requirements and offers better performance and whole-life costs than other competing technologies then over time anticipated opportunity value could be in the 500 000 GBP to 5 000 000 GBP range.
Prospective suppliers wishing to express interest in taking part in this process should register that interest in the 1
A brief statement (1 A4 page) outlining the company and its capability in supplying products of the type described in this notice.