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Background

The use of design‐build (D‐B) has accelerated the delivery of highway design and construction projects. The changes have come through the innovative efforts of the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) and departments of transportation (DOTs) around the country over the last 30 years. The South Carolina Department of Transportation (SCDOT) has been a leader in D‐B project delivery since the mid‐1990s. SCDOT was one of the first DOTs to use D‐B, completing the Wateree River D‐B projects in 1998 ($7.86M) and the Conway Bays Parkway D‐B in 2002 ($225M).

Research Objective

The goal of this research was to evaluate the effectiveness of SCDOT’s current D‐B program, review current project selection processes, identify best practices, identify cost-estimating procedures, and develop future effectiveness measuring processes. In other words, SCDOT´s primary goal was to confirm that it has a valid project delivery selection process and when it is determined that a project will be delivered via Design-Build, there are tools in place that can measure its effectiveness.

To achieve this goal, the University of ŷ���ڱ���Ƶ Boulder and SCDOT have identified the following sub-objectives:

• Identify the most effective Design-Build tools/processes/best practices along with how and when they are incorporated into the Design-Build procurement process.
• Identify and develop an effective cost-estimating process for Design-Build.
• Evaluate and refine SCDOT’s project selection process that determines if Design-Build is the most appropriate method for delivery of a project.
• Develop a measuring process for SCDOT to evaluate the effectiveness of Design-Build projects upon completion.

Expected Contributions

This research project allow to analyze and benchmark SCDOT’s Design-Build program performance and document lessons learned. The results will benefit South Carolina’s traveling public and be of interest to departments of transportation (DOTs) across the United States.

The findings of this research have derived recommendations for SCDOT’s procurement manual. These recommendations will offer an innovative solution that leverages the best practices into an implementable process aimed to improve the SCDOT current design-build program.

Funding

South Carolina Department of Transportation (SCDOT)

Publications

• Calahorra, M.; Torres-Machi, C.; Molenaar, K. (2020) Information Exchange in the Procurement Process of Design-Build Transportation Projects: Digging into the What, the When, the Who, and the How. Transportation Research Board 99th Annual Meeting, Washington, D.C., January 12-16. Organized by: Transportation Research Board of the National Academies.
• Calahorra, M.; Torres-Machi, C.; Molenaar, K. (2020) Alignment between Project Goals and Evaluation Criteria in Best-Value Procurement. Transportation Research Board 99th Annual Meeting, Washington, D.C., January 12-16. Organized by: Transportation Research Board of the National Academies.