Assessing Contractor Competition in Competitive Bidding for Highway Construction Projects Using Network Analysis

State highway agencies (SHAs) typically apply a competitive procurement procedure to select contractors for their design-bid-build projects. Since the level of competition affects construction bid prices and project outcomes, the Federal Highway Agency (FHWA) suggests SHAs seek ways to improve competition among contractors continuously. However, they rarely conduct an empirical assessment of the current competition level necessary to identify room for improvement. Besides the number of bidders on a project, other factors such as winning or losing rates among the contractors in previous projects can also indicate the degree of competition; only a few contractors may have won the majority of the projects in a specific region. However, few studies have investigated such factors. This paper proposes a network analysis-based approach to evaluating contractor competition levels of highway projects using historical bid tabulation data. The proposed method provides insights into overall competition levels, the determination of competitive contractors, and winning rate distribution among contractors.