Considerations for Rigid vs. Flexible Pavement Designs When Allowed as Alternate Bids

Project Description

The pavement structure accounts for a large percentage of the cost of most highway projects, and relatively small cost savings per square yard of pavement can produce meaningful overall project savings. One way to minimize construction costs is to allow a contractor to choose from different materials that serve an equivalent purpose, so the Texas Department of Transportation has explored the practice of including both rigid and flexible pavement alternatives in its bidding process. But in addition to promoting cost effectiveness, it is important to ensure that alternative approaches will result in similar pavement performance. Researchers took a number of steps to help ensure that balance, including a side-by-side pavement design method comparison, life cycle cost analyses for specific pavement designs, development of guidelines for considerations of rigid versus flexible pavement designs, and development of the Alternate Pavement Design Analysis Tool (APDAT) for pavement alternatives analysis. Interviews with TxDOT personnel and additional data analysis identified several project characteristics that should rule out alternate design options. In the absence of such characteristics, the researchers recommend the use of APDAT to determine whether alternative design options should be offered. In such cases, if a life cycle cost analysis determines that the cost difference between available options is 20 percent or less, the alternative option should be used for the bidding process. Highway construction costs continue to climb, even as transportation needs compete with other budget priorities at all levels of government, so the new protocol and software this research provides will help TxDOT achieve the best possible value for projects that use alternative pavement designs in the bidding process.

Project Publications

Considerations for Rigid vs. Flexible Pavement Design when Allowed as Alternate Bids: Technical Report 0-6085-1

Considerations for Rigid vs. Flexible Pavement Designs When Allowed as Alternate Bids 0-6085-S

Alternative Pavement Design Analysis Tool (APDAT) 0-6085-P1

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