Taylor Made Transportation Services, Inc. (B-423117.3)

You should not care.

Category: Past performance, compliance

Date: 28 May 2025

URL: https://www.gao.gov/products/b-423117.3

Taylor Made Transportation Services, Inc., protested VA’s decision to terminate its previously awarded contract for van shuttle transportation services after reevaluation found its proposal technically unacceptable under RFP No. 36C24524R0044. The protester challenged both the technical reevaluation that led to its elimination from competition and the resulting contract termination. Taylor Made’s primary argument was the agency’s finding that its past performance references failed to meet the solicitation’s recency requirement for large-scale shuttle experience, specifically that each reference must demonstrate work performed within five years of solicitation issuance.

GAO reviewed VA’s corrective action and reevaluation for reasonableness. Under the stated LPTA criteria, the RFP unambiguously required each past experience reference—demonstrating specific route and service criteria—to be completed within five years of the solicitation date. Taylor Made’s proposal listed a relevant VA contract that ended in March 2019, outside the five-year cutoff for the May 2024 solicitation. GAO found that the protester’s proposal did not meet the RFP’s technical requirements, rejecting arguments that partial compliance or contract extensions should have been credited. VA’s corrective action—involving termination for convenience—was proper as no eligible contract may be awarded based on an unacceptable proposal. Challenges to the evaluation of RTW, the next offeror, were dismissed as premature, as no new award decision had been made.

The protest was denied.

Digest

Protest challenging the agency’s termination of protester’s awarded contract is denied where, upon reevaluation, the agency reasonably found the protester’s proposal to be technically unacceptable.