During 2000, in the second round of maintenance contracting, Alberta Infrastructure retendered approximately 40% of the provincial highway network. With the full support of the Contractor Partners, the Province has instituted some major specification changes: 1. A risk sharing strategy for common winter maintenance activities which encouraged Contractor efficiency inside unit-price contracts; 2. A new specification that floats the number of snow plow trucks bid by the Contractor in their tender and the placement of snow and salt storage facilities proposed within the tender proposed. Thus permitting the Province of Alberta to eventually dispose of most of the Province's existing shops/yards without any loss in overall service to the network; 3. To increase Contractor efficiency resulting from expansion of the highway network from 15,902 kms to 30,601 kms, due to the addition of Alberta's former Secondary Highways into the scope of work. This required the development of a new winter resource allocation model for Alberta's expanded/combined highway network; 4. To promote Contractor confidence, the tender was made more objective and businesslike. This included development of an objective methodology component of the "Request for Proposal". Previous tenders had a subjective assessment of the Contractor's proposal for methodology; 5. During tender development, Contractor Partners were consulted extensively to ensure that tenders were appropriate in all aspects; 6. The number of areas that an individual bidder could be awarded was increased, to permit larger more efficient contracts. The results were encouraging, as summarised below: 1. Real unit prices dropped about 20%. Confidence by Contractors in the Alberta system remained high. All new Contracts to date have been awarded to existing Partners of the Department; 2. All of the proposals submitted met the technical requirements for winter and snow/ice control service levels. Desired levels of service to Alberta's highway network were protected despite widespread changes in the manner of delivery; 3. Alberta's new rural winter snow and ice service specifications were modified into a separate contract for Alberta's busiest roadway, Deerfoot Trail in the City of Calgary. The new specification permitted bidders to find the most economic mix of shop locations and number of trucks and still meet the high standards for snow/ice control for this busy roadway. (Author/publisher)
Abstract