Lane rental: innovative way to reduce road construction time

In recent years the public has faced a substantial increase in the number of transportation projects that are being constructed in urban areas under heavy traffic. This type of construction is causing the public major inconvenience, is increasing the number of accidents, and is causing substantial losses to the business community in the affected areas. Because of a perception that contractors focus only on their obligations of meeting budget and schedule considerations under conventional contracting methods and that they do not consider the inconvenience to the public caused by construction work, new contracting methods have been developed that specifically address this problem. This paper describes a method that has been used in the United Kingdom called lane rental. The lane rental method combines the cost to the using public for the closing of urban traffic routes with the traditional costs of construction. Under this system, contractors are required to consider, and include, both of these costs in the bidding process. The principles of lane rental and the adaptation to the construction industry environment in the United States are discussed in this paper. Two case studies of projects that are bid under lane rental provisions and the lessons that can be learned from those cases are described in this paper.