Influence of Highway Project Characteristics on Contract Type Selection: Empirical Assessment
Publication: Journal of Infrastructure Systems
Volume 16, Issue 4
Abstract
The selection of appropriate type of contract for a highway maintenance project can be influenced by project attributes such as the expected cost and duration. However, the expected project cost and planned duration depend on other project attributes and also depend on each other. These simultaneous relationships complicate the identification of the appropriate contract for a highway maintenance project. While previous research has provided insight into the factors that affect project cost and duration, the validity of the findings may have been stymied by a lack of explicit consideration of the simultaneous relationships between project duration and cost. In this paper, we develop a framework based on a three-stage least-squares model to identify the most appropriate type of contract given the project’s attributes while explicitly accounting for the simultaneity between project cost and duration. The framework can also be used to estimate the expected contract duration and cost on the basis of the project type, constituent work activities, physical size (length) of the project, and contract type. The results suggest that the choice of the appropriate contract type for a highway maintenance project is influenced by characteristics such as the number of constituent maintenance activities in the contract, the expected or specified contract characteristics (contract duration, cost, and length), and the type of highway asset in question.
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Acknowledgments
This work was supported by the Joint Transportation Research Program administered by the Indiana Department of Transportation (DOT) and Purdue University. The writers are grateful to Bill Flora (Indiana DOT), Frank T. Richards (Alaska DOT), Susan J. Berndt, Hope Jensen, Nancy Worline, and Steven Lund of Minnesota DOT, Lance Davis, Audry Reeves, and Steve Foskey of Polk County (Florida), Larry Buttler, Tammy Booker Sims, Bob Blackwell, and Kerry Hardy of Texas DOT, and Diane L. Mitchell, Dick Kiefer, Roy A. Thacker, and Robert Prezioso of Virginia DOT for providing contract data and other useful information. Also, the writers would like to sincerely thank Dr. K. C. Sinha, Dr. F. L. Mannering, Dr. G. Zietlow, and P. Pakkala (SAIC-Virginia) for their helpful suggestions and comments. Finally, the writers are grateful to the anonymous reviewers and the editor who significantly contributed in considerably improving the paper. The contents of this paper reflect the views of the writers, who are responsible for the facts and the accuracy of the data presented herein and do not necessarily reflect the official views or policies of the FHWA and the Indiana DOT nor do the contents constitute a standard, specification, or regulation.
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Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Infrastructure Systems
Volume 16 • Issue 4 • December 2010
Pages: 323 - 333
Copyright
© 2010 ASCE.
History
Received: Jan 17, 2009
Accepted: Apr 28, 2010
Published online: May 11, 2010
Published in print: Dec 2010
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