Alberta highway contracts to focus more on company performance, less on cost

The Alberta government will change the way it evaluates contractor bidsfor highway maintenance contracts, putting more emphasis on company performance and less on cost, Transportation Minister Brian Mason announced Tuesday.

In the past, such bids were evaluated on a 95-5 basis, with 95 per cent emphasis on cost and five per cent on technical components, Mason said.

The new model will focus more on performance and outcomes, with cost given 60 per cent emphasis and performance measures given 40 per cent.

"It's a points system,"said Mason at a news conference."We'll be evaluating the ability of the companies to deliver what they say they're going to deliver.

"[Performance] measures like the efficiency of plowingsnow, pothole repairs, weed cutting, line painting. That sort of thing."

The announcement came days after five Alberta road maintenance companies asked the courts to determine whether the government broke its own rules and policies when it awarded a $482-million contract to the British Columbia firm Emcon.

The contract previously belonged toCarillion Canada; the company held about 40 per cent of Alberta's road maintenance contracts. Earlier this year, a bankruptcy judge ruled Carillion'scontract would be transferred to Emcon.

• Alberta companies allege province broke its own rules in tendering road contract

In court documents, the companiesallege the government "breached its obligations under several interprovincial trade agreements, Alberta statues, and its own published procurement policies."

The filings further allege the process wasn't "transparent" and the government was "unreasonable" and "unfair" and favoured the B.C. company over the interests of Alberta companies.

Mason said the Carillion contract issue had little to do with the new evaluation methods.

"I actually asked the department to start looking at these ideas a couple of years ago and it's taken a while," he said.

Mason also announced a request for proposals for maintenance contracts onDeerfootTrail in Calgary. The existing contract will expire onJuly 31, 2019. This will be the first highway maintenance bidprocess under the new criteria, he said.

10 more contracts to be tendered

Contracts for 10 other highway maintenance areas across Alberta will be tendered later this year, according to the news release. A technical expert in the transportation department said those contracts are focused in parts of western and central Alberta.

Under the new criteria, maintenance contracts will have a seven-year lifespan, with a possible three-year extension if performance expectations are met. All highway maintenance contracts are opened to competitive bidding as they expire, a news release said.

Alberta is divided into 25 maintenance areasmanaged under eight highway maintenance contracts that cover 31,400 kilometres of provincial highways. The network also includes 4,500 bridges, Deerfoot Trail in Calgary and the ring roads around Calgary and Edmonton.