BIDDS: A Bid Item Level Performance Time Database Management System

State highway agencies must strive to set accurate and reasonable contract performance times in order to encourage qualified bidders, produce quality projects, and minimize impacts to the traveling public. The Federal Highway Administration recognizes this and has mandated that all state highway agencies have an approved, written contract time estimating procedure. The Federal Highway Administration also published a number of recommendations to assist individual state highway agencies in meeting this mandate. Among these recommendations is the development of a database of historical production rates and adjustment of these production rates for unique project characteristics. This work describes the development of a bid item level performance time database management system known as BIDDS. Primarily, BIDDS can be used by the scheduler, in conjunction with individual engineering judgment, to establish construction activity production rates. These rates, along with known material quantities, can be used to derive construction activity durations for the development of the pre-advertisement schedule.