Abstract
The North Carolina Department of Transportation (NCDOT) began using design–build contracting for highway construction projects in 2001 and now is authorized to award up to 25 design–build contracts annually. Because subsurface investigation is an expensive and time-consuming task usually requiring environmental permits from various federal and state agencies, NCDOT performs the subsurface investigations and provides the information to the design–build teams. The cost of subsurface investigations for nine design–build projects was compared with the historical data for subsurface investigations on conventional contract projects. Case studies of bridge foundation design and construction for two of the nine projects are presented along with comparison with conventional contract projects.
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