The major contributors to the total cost and duration of highway projects are utility relocation, right-of-way (ROW) acquisition, and construction. This paper discusses the volatility of the cost of the two latter phases and suggests alternative cost estimation tools and methods based on Texas databases. It describes three related but distinct studies. The first study discussed relies on regression models to estimate the construction costs of key roadway infrastructure. The second applies county-level appraisals and other databases to estimate the cost of ROW acquisition for the Trans-Texas Corridor (TTC) project. The third investigates the legal aspects of ROW acquisition and compares relevant statutes across the U.S. states, relative to their condemnation rates. Based on these comparisons, this paper offers recommendations that are expected to lower condemnation rates as well as the cost and duration of the ROW acquisition process. The work addresses significant gaps in the existing literature and should prove valuable to construction professionals/managers, transportation planners, developers, appraisers, and those involved in highway project cost estimation, as well as ROW acquisition

'TRB's National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) Report 574: Guidance for Cost Estimation and Management for Highway Projects During Planning, Programming, and Preconstruction explores approaches to cost estimation and management designed to overcome the root causes of cost escalation and to support the development of consistent and accurate project estimates through all phases of the development process, from long-range planning, through priority programming, and through project design. NCHRP Web-Only Document 98 details the steps followed by the research team in the development of NCHRP Report 574"--Publisher's description.

"TRB's National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) Report 755: Comprehensive Costs of Highway-Rail Grade Crossing Crashes describes a process for estimating the costs of highway-rail grade crossing crashes. A spreadsheet-based tool to facilitate use of the cost estimation process is available online." --Publisher description.

The essential, authoritative guide to providing accurate, systematic, and reliable estimating for construction projects—newly revised Pricing and bidding for construction work is at the heart of every construction business, and in the minds of construction consultants’ poor bids lead to poor performance and nobody wins. New Code of Estimating Practice examines the processes of estimating and pricing, providing best practice guidelines for those involved in procuring and pricing construction works, both in the public and private sectors. It embodies principles that are applicable to any project regardless of size or complexity. This authoritative guide has been completely rewritten to include much more contextual and educational material as well as the code of practice. It covers changes in estimating practice; the bidding process; the fundamentals in formulating a bid; the pre-qualification process; procurement options; contractual arrangements and legal issues; preliminaries; temporary works; cost estimating techniques; risk management; logistics; resource and production planning; computer-aided estimating; information and time planning; resource planning and pricing; preparation of an estimator’s report; bid assembly and adjudication; pre-production planning and processes; and site production. Established standard for the construction industry, providing the only code of practice on construction estimating Prepared under the auspices of the Chartered Institute of Building and endorsed by a range of other professional bodies Completely rewritten since the 7th edition, to include much more contextual and educational material, as well as the core code of practice New Code of Estimating Practice is an important book for construction contractors, specialist contractors, quantity surveyors/cost consultants, and for students of construction and quantity surveying.

This report provides detailed information about the project objectives, deliverables, and findings. The project team thoroughly reviewed the Montana Department of Transportation (MDT) structure, operations, and current procedures as related to MDT highway projects cost estimation practices. This was achieved through a series of visits and a comprehensive set of interviews of MDT staff involved with highway project cost estimation. A literature review of the state-of-practice cost estimating procedures was also conducted and compared with MDT practices. This report contains the project team recommendations along with a series of strategic procedures to implement those recommendations. The report also provides a timeframe for the implementation of recommendations and strategic procedures.