By Hossein Roshani, Contributing Author
Optimizing the bidding process to receive competitive bids for roadway maintenance projects — that’s the goal for small municipalities.
Contractors are critical to the success of any infrastructure improvement program. Without skilled contractors, no progress can be made on essential projects. However, it is equally important for municipalities and consultants to ensure they are getting the best value for taxpayer dollars.
By refining the advertisement and bidding process, municipalities can attract the right contractors while maximizing the return on investment for public funds. Let’s examine key strategies that go beyond the basics, providing practical tips and tricks to help municipalities enhance the competitiveness and efficiency of their bidding processes.
Advertisement Process Must-Haves
- Clear Project Scope and Specifications: Ensure that bid documents outline the scope, including materials, timelines and specific project expectations. This avoids misunderstandings and reduces the likelihood of costly change orders.
- Adequate Advertisement Period: Provide enough time for contractors to prepare their bids, especially for complex projects. A well-prepared bid leads to accurate pricing and minimizes the risk of future complications.
- Pre-Bid Meetings: Holding these allows potential bidders to gain a clear understanding of the project’s scope, requirements and expectations, ensuring they submit well-informed bids. These meetings also provide a platform for bidders to ask questions, clarify ambiguities and address concerns directly with the project team.
- Bid Requirements: Define requirements such as insurance, bonding, qualifications and deadlines to attract qualified contractors.
- Evaluation Criteria Transparency: Outline the criteria for evaluating bids, such as price, experience and past performance, so contractors know what to emphasize in their proposals.
Approaches and Strategies
Strategy 1 — Neighborhood Approach for Project Packaging: When planning street maintenance projects across town, it’s often beneficial to group projects based on geographic proximity.
Packaging projects that are close to each other within the same neighborhood can lead to savings in mobilization costs, reduce overall project timelines and minimize community disruption.
This approach may require some scheduling flexibility. For example, expediting a project that was initially scheduled for the following year and combining it with nearby projects can streamline construction efforts. Similarly, postponing less critical projects to align with others in the same neighborhood ensures a more cohesive and cost-effective bid package.
Strategy 2 — Separate Advertisement for Different Pavement Applications: Municipalities in Texas often use a variety of pavement treatments, such as crack sealing, fog sealing, slurry sealing, chip sealing, micro-surfacing, mill and overlay and full reconstruction.
While some contractors can perform all of these treatments, bundling multiple applications in a single bid package can limit the number of qualified contractors.
For example, combining mill and overlay projects with micro-surfacing in one bid may require contractors to team up with subcontractors, leading to increased costs due to markup fees and logistical complexity. To maximize competition and achieve better pricing, it’s advisable to advertise projects with similar applications separately. This allows contractors to bid on the work they specialize in, driving down costs and improving quality.
Strategy 3 — Proactive Contractor Outreach: Reach out to local contractors to inform them about upcoming bidding opportunities. This can generate early interest and ensure a larger pool of qualified bidders, leading to more competitive pricing.
Outreach efforts must comply with legal requirements, such as maintaining transparency and observing blackout periods where direct communication with contractors is restricted. By adhering to these guidelines, municipalities can encourage competition while maintaining fairness in the bidding process.
Strategy 4 — Separate Contracts for Base Repairs in Pavement Preservation Projects: In many pavement preservation projects, minor base repairs are included in the scope of work.
However, bids for these repairs often come at a premium compared to those in street rehabilitation projects. A more cost-effective approach is to separate the base repairs into their own contract, focusing solely on addressing base issues across multiple preservation projects.
By completing the base repairs in advance, often in the year prior to the scheduled preservation work, municipalities can secure better pricing for base repairs and subsequent pavement preservation. This can reduce costs, especially for larger municipalities with extensive pavement preservation programs, while ensuring the roads are prepared before the preservation treatments are applied.
Strategy 5 — Separate Contracts for Flatwork Projects: Flatwork projects, such as Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) ramp upgrades, curb and gutter replacements and sidewalk improvements, are often included as minor components within larger roadway maintenance projects.
However, like base repairs, the costs for flatwork can be higher when bundled with other types of work, as general contractors may not specialize in these tasks and might subcontract them, adding markup fees.
A more efficient approach is to advertise flatwork projects separately as standalone contracts. By doing so, municipalities can attract contractors who specialize in this type of work, resulting in more competitive pricing and higher quality outcomes.
These specialized contractors often have the specific expertise and equipment necessary to complete flatwork more efficiently.
For larger municipalities with ongoing flatwork needs, this approach can lead to significant cost savings and allow for more focused improvements in accessibility and pedestrian infrastructure.
Strategy 6 — Avoid Time Conflicts with Major Transportation Agencies: In regions where large transportation agencies dominate the infrastructure market, it is crucial for municipalities to avoid scheduling bid openings on the same dates as these agencies’ letting dates.
Major transportation agencies often receive the bulk of attention from contractors, and overlapping bid schedules can lead to fewer bidders for municipal projects.
To ensure municipalities attract the best possible pool of contractors, schedule bid openings at least one to two weeks away from the major agency’s letting dates. This allows contractors time to prepare their municipal bids after submitting bids for larger state projects. Avoiding this conflict maximizes competition and leads to more competitive pricing, as contractors will not feel rushed or overextended when preparing multiple bids.
Strategy 7 — Timing Bids for Asphalt-Heavy Projects in Late Fall, Early Winter: Municipalities may benefit from timing their bids for projects that rely on asphalt materials for this stretch.
Historically, asphalt binder prices are often lower during these months due to reduced demand for petroleum products as the construction season slows down. Refineries may also have excess asphalt binder available as they transition from producing fuels for the high-demand summer months. Additionally, contractors looking to fill their schedules for the upcoming spring and summer may offer more competitive pricing.
However, it’s important to note that this strategy does not guarantee lower costs. Regional factors, unexpected fluctuations in oil prices and local contractor availability can influence the effectiveness of this approach. Municipalities should monitor local trends, oil price forecasts and market conditions to determine whether this timing strategy is likely to yield cost savings for their projects.
Strategy 8 — Task Order Contract Packages for Flexibility and Efficiency: For non-complex projects, municipalities can adopt task order contract packages as an effective alternative to traditional project-specific bidding.
This approach allows municipalities to estimate rough total quantities for a range of construction items rather than detailing exact quantities upfront. Once a contractor is selected through a competitive bidding process, specific projects can be defined, and task orders issued under the umbrella of the larger contract.
This method streamlines the procurement process by reducing the need for repetitive bid preparation and contractor selection for individual projects, making it particularly suitable for routine or straightforward work like street maintenance, sidewalk repairs or pavement preservation.
Task order contracts also promote cost predictability by locking in unit prices, providing financial clarity while allowing for scope flexibility. Contractors may offer competitive pricing, knowing they are bidding for an extended volume of work rather than a single project.
This fosters a collaborative relationship between the municipality and the contractor, enhancing coordination and consistency across multiple projects. Furthermore, municipalities gain the advantage of better resource availability, as contractors are committed to the scope of the task order contract, ensuring that materials, equipment and labor are more readily accessible.
Optimizing the bidding process is essential for municipalities to ensure the effective use of public funds while maintaining and improving their roadway networks. By combining fundamental best practices — such as clear communication, adequate advertisement periods and transparent evaluation criteria — with advanced strategies like task order contracts, neighborhood packaging and separate contracts for specialized work, municipalities can attract competitive bids, reduce costs and enhance project outcomes.
These approaches provide the flexibility and efficiency needed to address non-complex projects, streamline procurement and adapt to changing priorities. Embracing these strategies will enable municipalities to deliver high-quality infrastructure improvements, maximizing value for their communities. RB
Hossein Roshani, Ph.D., P.E., is a senior project manager at Halff.
