State highway agencies face a major challenge in controlling project budgets over the time span between project initiation and the completion of construction. Project cost increases, as reflected by budget overruns during the course of project development, are caused by factors that have been identified through a large number of studies and research projects. These factors, the root causes behind estimation problems, differ with project development phase and project complexity. This guidebook presents cost estimation management and cost estimation practice approaches to address the root causes of cost escalation and to support the development of consistent and accurate project estimates. These approaches are aligned with project development phases and project complexity. The guidebook provides appropriate http://onlinepubs.trb.org/onlinepubs/nchrp/nchrp_rpt_574.pdfstrategies, methods, and tools to develop, track, and document realistic cost estimates during each phase of project development. (Author/publisher) This report may be accessed by Internet users at
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