The Federal Highway Administration has jumped into the electronic Internet bidding pool and come up with a technical guide that encourages states to put those tools to work on transportation construction projects.

Internet Bidding for Highway Construction Projects, written for state departments of transportation, bidders and contractors, covers software and hardware currently available for such systems. It discusses benefits and implementation issues, as well as systems for linkage to electronic bid bonding and electronic plan drawings.

The paper holds that Internet bidding promises savings in time and cost to both departments of transportation and and contractors. It predicts such systems will become more prevalent and sets out to provide basis for planning implementation.

References to testimonials and papers from DOTs that are using Internet bidding are provided, as is an extensive bibliography of other resources.

The paper can be found by its title at www.fhwa.dot.gov.