Delivery methods, risk sharing, standards and performance for construction, operations, and management: The TEXpress managed lanes system, Dallas-Ft. Worth, Texas

Abstract

Dynamically tolled managed lanes and public–private partnership (P3) infrastructure delivery approaches can provide decision makers with innovative solutions for addressing traffic congestion challenges. These diverse delivery methods entail very different allocations of risks, costs, and benefits. Thus, evaluating managed toll road performance under different delivery methods can offer valuable insights. To that end, this study evaluates primary documents from the Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas, region’s TEXpress managed lanes system to explore its risk allocations, construction standards, and operations and maintenance standards. Texas employed P3 delivery approaches for 5 of the system’s 6 major development projects, with the more complex, multi-stage contracts sharing and/or transferring more risk with/to the private sector. The three DBFOM contracts were more than three times larger (average size $2.08 billion) than the DBB, DBM and DBOM projects (average size $656 million). The state also imposed more varied and complex construction requirements via the P3 contracts, including penalties for poor performance. The three DBFOM P3 projects delivered their facilities early; the other three projects delivered their facilities late. One DBFOM P3 project had no change orders; the other four projects had 207, 28, 13 and 8 change orders valued at 6.6%, 4.1%, −1.2%, and 0.35% of project cost, respectively. Despite differing delivery methods, few substantial differences appeared among the projects’ operations and maintenance standards.