Synthesis of Performance Measures for Highway Cost Estimating

Abstract

The use of performance measures for evaluating projects or agencies as a whole is not a new idea. Performance measures have been in use for many years in the private and public highway construction sectors for a variety of areas and tasks. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) and federal transportation funding are now requiring state highway agencies to develop and document performance measures throughout their agency operations. However, few highway agencies use performance measures for cost estimating. This study synthesizes, categorizes, and validates existing performance measures for cost estimating of highway projects to assist with improving estimating accuracy. It provides a foundation for the development and use of new performance measures that agencies can share and use to improve estimating procedures. Performance measures for estimating were developed through an extensive literature review and content analysis to synthesize measures specifically for cost estimating in addition to categorizing the cost-estimating performance measures. These categories and performance measures were then validated with a questionnaire and interviews of selected state highway agency estimating experts. The main categories for these performance measures are bidding accuracy, estimating accuracy, competition effects, estimating processes, and contingency amounts. The results then provide a comprehensive list of valid performance measures for cost estimating in use today by highway agencies and a foundation for developing future measures.