Overview |  FAQ |  Glossary

General overview
The Weighted Bid Prices module of the Construction Project Estimator is intended to provide access to timely average mean and median bid price data. Project bid data will be updated weekly to reflect the most recent bids received by MassDOT- Highway Division.

The database uses all bid data received in responsive bids, not just the low bid. The bid prices are displayed in groups of increasing quantities. The limits of these groups will be revised as additional bid data is obtained, and is intended to provide an indication of bid price variations as quantities increase. The bid data is analyzed to remove very high and very low bids.

The website is designed to provide a range of information about historical bid values for any particular item. It is not intended to provide absolute values for each item.

FAQ

Here are some frequently asked questions about this application.

Q: What does the 'Weighted Bid Prices' module of this application do?
A:The 'Weighted Bid Prices' module is intended to provide access to timely average mean and median bid price data. Project bid data will be updated weekly to reflect the most recent bids received by MassDOT-Highway Division.

Q: What bids are used to calculate the weighted bid prices?
A:  The database uses all bid data received in responsive bids, not just the low bid. The bid prices are displayed in groups of increasing quantities. The limits of these groups will be revised as additional bid data is obtained, and is intended to provide an indication of bid price variations as quantities increase. The bid data is analyzed to remove very high and very low bids. The application is designed to provide a range of information about historical bid values for any particular item. It is not intended to provide absolute values for each item.

Q: How is bid data processed by the "Weighted Bid Prices" module?
A: Once the system has identified all bids meeting the selected criteria, the following analytical processes will occur:

1. Project bids are ordered by project quantity
2. The lowest quantity is subtracted from the highest quantity
   1. The result is divided by the items’ quantity group factor creating the appropriate number of equalized quantity groups.
3. All bids are distributed to their appropriate quantity group
4. The median price is determined for each quantity group
5. The items’ variance percent is applied to the median price for each quantity group in order to create a high median and a low median for each group
6. All bids falling outside the high median and low median ranges for each quantity group are discarded
   1. A new median price is determined for each quantity group.
   2. The mean price for each quantity group is calculated.

Q: What are very high and very low bids?
A: These are bid prices determined to be excessively high or low when compared to the median bid price of all bids for a given item. This determination is based on calculating the items’ high/low median price as follows:

1. high = median price + (median price * variance percentage)
2. low = median price – (median price * variance percentage)

Since individual bids falling outside this high/low range, may skew the averages, they are ignored.

 

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Glossary
Here are some terms you may find throughout this application.

• Project Number: This is a field in which the user will specify the Project Number for which this preliminary estimate is being created. The project number is the unique identifier of the project in ProjectInfo (MassDOT-Highway Division’s project tracking system).
• Project Description: Text description of the construction work. Field is limited to 60 characters.
• MassDOT-Highway Division District: Identifies the MassDOT-Highway District responsible for the construction. The following are the valid values for a District:
   1-6: Current Highway Districts
  
• Measurement System: E: English measurement system; M: Metric measurement system
• Vendor Bids: Only responsive bids are considered. A bid may be declared non-responsive by MassDOT-Highway for many reasons such as clerical or mathematical error, or in response to the vendor's request to withdraw there bid. Also certain unit prices may be considered too high or too low to participate in the computing of the statistics. A variance level is defined for each line item where prices are considered appropriate to participate in the statistics.
• Item No: Item number, an identifier of an activity to be performed. If you enter an item number that corresponds to a MassDOT-Highway standard line number, the description, units and type fields will be overridden automatically by the MassDOT-Highway standard values. You are also allowed to enter a non-standard item number.
• Units: How the item is measured. The unit must agree with the measurement system chosen in the header. A list of valid units of measure is available at the end of this page.
• Type: This is a field which is automatically populated based on the item number selected.
   Blank: Standard item
   Noted with *: Standard item requiring a special provision
  
• Unit Price: How the item is measured. The unit must agree with the measurement system chosen in the header. A list of valid units of measure is available at the end of this page.
• Minimum: The minimum unit price from the vendor bids.
• Maximum: The maximum unit price from the vendor bids.
• Quantity: Represents the quantity in the specified units for the item.
• Min Quantity: The lower end of quantity interval.
• Max Quantity: The upper end of quantity interval.
• Mean: The average unit price.
• Median: The middle unit price, above and below which lay an equal number of unit prices. This number is computed from the line item statistics and is used as the default unit price for the line item.
• Responsive Bids: Bids determined to be "acceptable" by MassDOT-Highway.
  Bids determined to be "unacceptable" may be:
  
  1. Bids declared "rejected" or "non-responsive" due to clerical and/or mathematical error.
  2. Bids with the approval of MassDOT-Highway Division, withdrawn at the bidders requested.

Standard Units of Measure

Unit Description Measurement System $ US DOLLARS English and Metric ALS ANNUAL LUMP SUM English and Metric BAG PER BAG English and Metric CAR PER CAR English and Metric CNG PER CLEANING English and Metric CUT PER CUT English and Metric DAY PER DAY English and Metric DD PER DRUM DAY English and Metric DRM PER DRUM English and Metric EA EACH English and Metric FLR PER FLOOR English and Metric HR PER HOUR English and Metric HRS PER HOUR English and Metric LS LUMP SUM English and Metric MD PER MAN DAY English and Metric MH PER MAN HOUR English and Metric MO PER MONTH English and Metric SD PER SPACE DAY English and Metric SPT PER SPOT English and Metric U PER UNIT English and Metric UD PER UNIT DAY English and Metric WK PER WEEK English and Metric MMG PER MILLION GAL English VF PER VERT. FT. English UC **CA/T USE ONLY English SY PER SQUARE YARD English TON PER TON English TPM **CA/T USE ONLY English SF PER SQUARE FOOT English SFD **CA/T USE ONLY English SH **CA/T USE ONLY English SI PER SQUARE IN English MSF **CA/T USE ONLY English OZ PER OUNCE English QT PER QUART English RIS **CA/T USE ONLY English MBM PER MFBM English MGL PER 1000 GALS English

Unit Description Measurement System KWH PER KILOWATT HR English GAL PER GALLON English CY PER CUBIC YARD English CSF PER 100 SQ. FT. English LB PER POUND English LBS PER POUND English LD **CA/T USE ONLY English LF PER LINEAR FOOT English LFD **CA/T USE ONLY English LI PER LINEAR INCH English LM PER LINEAR MILE English LOD **CA/T USE ONLY English CCF PER 100 CU.FT. English CF PER CUBIC FOOT English CGL PER 100 GALS English CH **CA/T USE ONLY English CLF PER 100 LIN FT. English BBL PER BARREL English BF PER BOARD FOOT English A PER ACRE English AAA **CA/T USE ONLY English AL **CA/T USE ONLY English CM PER CUBIC METER Metric CMM PER CUBIC ARE Metric HA PER HECTARE Metric L PER LITER Metric Metric PER METER Metric KG PER KILOGRAM Metric KL PER KILOLITER Metric KM PER KILOMETER Metric MG PER MEGAGRAM Metric MRD PER METER DAY Metric MM PER MILLIMETER Metric MT PER METRIC TON Metric SM PER SQ. METER Metric SMM PER SQ. MM Metric VM PER VERT. METER Metric

Table 1: Table of standard MassDOT-Highway units of measure.