Contractor Assistance in Highway Maintenance: State-of-the-Art Evaluation

About the report:

The purpose of this study was to perform a state-of-the art evaluation of contractor assistance in Virginia's highway maintenance. The study revealed that expenditures for contractor assistance accounted for 2.79% of the total expenditure on ordinary maintenance, 60.17% of the expenditure on maintenance replacement, and 32.60% of the expenditure on incidental construction during FY78-79. For ordinary maintenance, 47.48% of the expenditure for contractor assistance was for snow and ice control, 15.41% was for traffic services and operations, and 14.08% was for maintenance of bituminous surfaces. In the case of maintenance replacement, 54.56% of the expenditure for contractor assistance was for surface replacement and 36.17% was for major flood damage. For assistance on incidental construction, 75.44% of the expenditure went for surface and base work and 13.12% for roadway construction. The basic procedure used in Virginia to determine whether or not to employ contractor assistance in performing highway maintenance work is as follows. (a) Determine the need for the work to be performed and how quickly the work must be done. (b) Determine if the proper men and equipment are available to do the work within the time required. (c) If either the proper or sufficient amount of equipment and personnel are not available, then employ the needed contractor assistance. The development of formal procedures for comparing costs of performing maintenance activities with state forces and costs with contractor assistance is recommended.

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