Dynamic Contract Time Determination System for Highway Projects

Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) projects have been experiencing significant delays. Some of these delays can be rooted to the inaccurate estimation of the contract time. This research presents a preliminary framework for the development of a computer-based system designed to determine a realistic contract duration for TxDOT projects. In addition to traditional deterministic scheduling, the system also performs probabilistic scheduling using the program evaluation and review technique. The system also incorporates an interactive database containing a list of various highway construction activities and their productivity rates; the database is used to estimate the durations of project activities. The system was deployed to reschedule some previous TxDOT projects, and the results were statistically compared and analyzed. The results show that this system can significantly improve the estimate of the contract time. This framework lays the foundation for the development of a more advanced contract time determination system based on probabilistic scheduling.