Examining Critical Factors Affecting Urban Highway Construction Contract Times

Abstract

Despite extensive research to identify internal factors influencing highway infrastructure improvement projects’ contract time determination (CTD), definitive information regarding the comprehensive factors affecting urban highway rehabilitation projects remains lacking. The unique dynamics of urban environments require a more in-depth investigation. The primary objective of this study was to holistically examine the influential factors that affect CTD in the specific context of urban highway projects. An extensive survey was conducted involving 21 state transportation agencies (STAs) across 20 states. Rigorous statistical analyses, including descriptive statistics and analysis of variance (ANOVA) tests, revealed that traffic volumes play an instrumental role in urban CTD decision-making. This study yields the results of influential factors for CTD that STAs can use as benchmarks when developing construction documents, including plans for contracting and contract times, specifications, and engineer estimates, collectively known as the plan, specifications, and estimate (PS&E) bidding package. These results can assist STAs in devising more reliable PS&E documents, which are particularly useful for bidding under alternative contracting provisions such as cost-plus-time, where bidder selection is based on a combination of cost and contract time.