THE PURCHASING DIVISION AND THE TRANSPORTATION DEPARTMENT/TRANSIT DIVISION RECOMMEND APPROVAL OF THE ABOVE MOTION.
This item supports the Board's vision of "A sustainable system of world-class intermodal transportation, infrastructure, quality human services, public safety, affordable housing, recreation, arts and culture, complementing and balancing our natural resources and environment"; and its values of “Cooperatively delivering an efficient and accessible regional intermodal transportation network”, “Encouraging investments in renewable energy, sustainable practices and environmental protection”, and “Consistently delivering responsive, efficient, quality services to the public and internal customers" by purchasing electric buses. Deploying all-electric buses to replace existing diesel buses will reduce energy consumption, emissions of harmful pollutants and greenhouse gases and contribute to the County’s Climate Change Action Plan initiatives.
The Office of Economic and Small Business Development did not assign goals for this procurement, because it is based on the use of a pre-existing State of Georgia contract (Exhibit 2).
The purpose of this contract is to purchase 15 forty-foot, low floor, heavy-duty all-electric transit buses to include diagnostic equipment, spare parts and training, via the State of Georgia Contract No. 99999-001-SPD0000138 at a unit cost of $741,000 per bus for the Broward County Transit (BCT) Division (Exhibit 1).
In accordance with Section 21.36 of the Procurement Code, the Director of Purchasing may purchase directly from federal, state or local contracts when the contract expressly permits, or if the awarding jurisdiction and/or the vendor agree to allow the County to utilize the contract. By purchasing from this contract, the County will benefit from lower costs available through competitive pricing based on large volume discounts.
The State of Georgia Solicitation No. 99999-001-SPD0000152, Supplemental Mass Transit and Transportation Related Vehicles and Related Equipment and Accessories, was competitively solicited as a Request for Proposals (RFP) by the State of Georgia Administrative Services Department and is compliant with the Federal Transit Administration procurement guidelines and piggyback requirements. The RFP posted on December 14, 2017 and publicly opened on February 6, 2018, with eight responses received.
By utilizing State of Georgia's contract, the County is taking advantage of the State of Georgia's pre-negotiated pricing, reducing time and minimizing operational and administrative functions. Additional benefits include reducing overall diesel fuel consumption by BCT, reduced or low noise pollution, elimination of harmful air pollutants and odor reductions due to zero tailpipe emissions. The contract also allows the County to promote its ongoing commitment to environmental sustainability by purchasing all-electric vehicles.
On June 12, 2018 (Item No. 31), the Board authorized the Director of Purchasing to execute an agreement with Build Your Dream Motors, Inc. (BYD) for the purchase of five 45-foot Over-the-Road electric buses, which included charging systems. On September 27, 2018, the Director of Purchasing approved an agreement between BYD and Broward County for the purchase of five 45-foot Over-the-Road electric buses, which included charging systems. The charging system that was purchased with the previous BYD 45-foot Over-the-Road buses are unique to BYD bus design and build; other bus manufacturers' electric buses cannot be charged using BYD charging stations. In order to maintain charging systems compatibility requirements, BCT has chosen to purchase buses from BYD in lieu of Proterra, Inc. despite the lower price offered by Proterra, Inc. for the 40-foot electric, heavy duty, low floor transit bus. Proterra, Inc. and other vendors listed on the State of Georgia contract charging systems are unique and specific to their bus design and specifications, which would require a different configuration and setup than BYD. A price comparison was performed by State of Georgia and the prices were determined to be fair, reasonable and aligned with market analysis for the industry (Exhibit 5).
The amounts referenced in this agenda were rounded to the nearest whole dollar. Vendor payments will be based on the actual bid amount.
No vendor performance evaluation has been completed for BYD.
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