AI for asphalt paving contractors, tested on bid schedules your estimators already worked.

The season sets dates the paperwork has to meet. North Carolina's guidelines for setting contract time allow no final surface layer thicker than an inch between December 15 and March 16, and none thinner than an inch between November 15 and April 1. They count 16 work days in a calendar month on work that wet weather can delay. A letting priced without those windows in view can promise a date the season won't give, which is why a bid sheet has to carry the contract's time limits beside its quantities.

Bid windows are short, and the package keeps moving. The Town of Normal, Illinois posted its 2026 street resurfacing program on July 2, held an optional pre-bid meeting on July 7, listed an addendum among the documents and opened bids on July 15. Every letting starts with the same reading: what is being bought, in which units, under which provisions. Your last season's lettings already show how your team answered, so each one is a complete test.

Binder pricing can be settled on the bid form. Illinois adds its bituminous cost adjustment to projects with at least 1,200 tons of applicable work, has the bidder say with its bid whether the adjustment applies, and leaves out tack coats and crack filling. Colorado's depends on a choice marked on Form 85, and a bidder who marks nothing doesn't get it. Washington publishes a binder reference cost twice a month, one for each side of the state, and takes the base from the last figure before bid opening. An election like that is easy to miss on a deadline, so the draft sheet puts it in front of your estimator.

A mill and overlay can bring more than asphalt. The 2013 joint technical assistance from the Justice and Transportation departments treats an overlay, with or without milling, as an alteration that brings curb ramps with it, while chip seals, slurry seals, fog seals, crack filling and patching normally count as maintenance. That guidance is addressed to public agencies, and whether ramp work falls in your contract is for your estimator to read. The draft only shows whether the package prices it, mentions it or says nothing at all.

Test records come next because someone else will read them. On federal-aid highway work, 23 CFR 637.207 lets a state count a contractor's quality control tests toward acceptance only when qualified labs and people ran them, samples taken independently of those tests verify the quality, and an independent assurance program evaluates the testing. Disagreements between the two sets of numbers need a way to be resolved. A closed lot already shows what your team filed and what the agency did with it, so it can be compared entry by entry.

One limit runs through both jobs. The proof of concept never touches your estimating system, a plant system, a live bid or an agency portal. It never prices a bid, accepts a test result or submits a record. Your estimator approves every bid and your quality control manager signs every submission. The rules named here are examples that vary by agency, and nothing on this page is legal or engineering advice.