Delivering highway projects through design-build: Analysis of the comprehensive development agreement (CDA) procurement process in Texas

Design-Build (D-B) has been increasingly adopted for construction projects in the United States. Previous research has identified the desire to reduce the total project delivery time as the primary reason to select D-B. However, inexperience of state transportation departments (STD) with D-B can slow the procurement phase, endangering the desired time reduction. Therefore, the knowledge of the activities to be included in a D-B procurement process and their critical sequencing is a central issue in conducting projects under D-B. Although many recent studies focused on the evaluation aspect of the procurement, much less attention has been paid to the sequencing of activities to be performed by a STD between the "go/no go" decision and the contract execution. This paper summarizes the findings from research analyzing the procurement of two D-B projects in Texas: State Highway 130 (SH130), and the State Highway 45 Southeast (SH45 SE). Using the lessons learned from these ongoing projects, the researchers have developed a streamlined D-B prourement process for delivering highway projects.