Effectiveness of the Combined Transportation and Utility Construction Strategy; Technical rept. (9/2004 - 8/2006)

摘要

Because more and more highway projects are located in congested metro settings, more projects require adjacent utilities be adjusted to make room for new or expanded highway facilities. The adjustment of utilities prior to highway construction is a challenging operation from many perspectives. Because of its complexity, managing utility adjustment is fraught with risk and uncertainty. One major strategic approach that has emerged over the past 15 years is to combine utility adjustment work with the highway contractors scope of work. Because it allows for better coordination between involved parties, this approach theoretically eliminates or reduces some of the associated complications and risks and is referred to in this research as the Combined Transportation and Utility Construction (CTUC) approach. Given the complications of the issues involved, there is a significant need for a decision support tool to provide guidance to TxDOT and utility decision makers as to when the CTUC approach should be applied. This research aims to document CTUC advantages-disadvantages trade-offs, to better understand those project circumstances with which the benefits of CTUC can be leveraged, and to provide a decision support tool to assist both TxDOT and utility decision makers in identifying significant issues to be addressed for a given utility adjustment.