This paper was presented at the `Value-Added Pavement Design and Performance' session. The traditional pavement construction contract has worked fairly well, but has some limitations in terms of fostering innovation, encouraging quality and reducing life-cycle costs. A number of new pavement construction practices such as cost-plus-time bidding, lane rental bidding, design-build contracts and warranty clauses are being evaluated and adopted in Canada. Many agencies have developed end result specifications based on statistical quality assurance concepts that will undoubtedly evolve to performance-based specifications. New contracting practices such as cost-plus-time bidding (A+B method) and lane-rental bidding encourage paving contractors to minimize road-user impacts. Design-build contracting allows contractors (design-build teams) to optimize their design and construction abilities and to be innovative. While the surety industry currently opposes long-term warranties, exteded warranty requirements are being evaluated by agencies as a method to ensure that, in taking more responsibility for the pavement construction the contractors are meeting long-term pavement performance objectives. It is imperative that pavement construction become more life-cycle cost-effective through new design procedures, materials, methods and contracting practices. (A)
Abstract