MDOT SHA project schedule requirements: 2026 Standard Specifications Section 109
The Maryland Department of Transportation State Highway Administration states its scheduling requirements in Section 109, Project Schedule, of the 2026 Standard Specifications for Construction and Materials — the edition recorded as effective 1 July 2026, retrieved from the agency's Office of Construction specifications page on 1 September 2026 and read in full for this page. The document set behind this site also holds the 2022 edition; nothing below is read from it, and every clause number here is the 2026 book's.
GP-8.04 and Section 109 are one requirement in two places
A reader who searches this book for a scheduling clause meets GP-8.04 Progress Schedule first, because the General Provisions come earlier. GP-8.04 is the prosecution-and-progress clause: a progress schedule within 30 days after Notice to Proceed showing the order of work and the time it needs; revised schedules as the procurement officer directs; power to withhold progress payment estimates or to terminate for default where it does not arrive; and supplemental schedules where the Contractor falls well behind. It names no method, no product and no file format.
Read alone, GP-8.04 suggests Maryland does not require CPM. It does. The method requirement lives in Section 109, and the two clauses are complementary rather than alternative — Section 109 itself points back at GP-8.04 for the submission provisions and for the consequences of not keeping to the schedule (§109.01). GP-8.04 carries the enforcement; Section 109 is the scheduling specification. Neither is the whole requirement, and quoting either one alone misstates what a Maryland contract asks for.
What Section 109 requires
| Requirement | What the 2026 edition states | Clause |
|---|---|---|
| Scheduling software | For Type B and Type C: software able to export to a compatible version of Oracle Primavera run by the Administration's reviewer, in .xer format. No product is mandated for the Contractor. For Type A: spreadsheets, CPM scheduling software, or another means |
§109.03.01.02, §109.03.01.01 |
| Baseline deadline | Within 20 days of Notice of Award, with the written narrative. Work may not begin before the initial schedule is accepted unless the Engineer directs otherwise in writing. The Administration designates a status within 20 days of submittal; where nothing has been accepted within 90 days of Notice to Proceed, work and contract-wide progress payments are held | §109.03.01, §109.03.01.04 |
| Update frequency | Monthly, submitted within 7 days of the data date the parties agree for the project, continuing until the day after Substantial Completion. The Administration responds within 20 days | §109.03.02, §109.03.02.03 |
| Narrative | Required with the initial schedule, every update and every revision, each unique to its own submittal. The update narrative covers progress, delays and potential delays, scope changes, crew changes, and the current longest path with an explanation where it has moved | §109.03.01.02(g), §109.03.02.02(b), §109.03.03.02(b) |
| Recovery or revised schedule trigger | The Administration may request a revision as a recovery schedule where an update calculates Substantial Completion more than 30 days past the contract date; the Contractor may request a time extension instead where this specification warrants one. Out-of-sequence progress unresolved 30 days after the activity started is also corrected through a revision | §109.03.02.03, §109.03.02.02(c) |
| Time impact analysis | Yes, and it is definitional: an extension of the Substantial Completion Date or of an Incentive/Disincentive Date rests on the calendar days of impact as determined by a Time Impact Analysis the Contractor submits. §109.01.01 defines the method as prospective. Requests go in separately from the update narrative | §109.03.04, §109.03.04.01 |
| Float ownership | Shared. §109.01.01 defines float as a shared commodity for the use of both the Administration and the Contractor, exclusive to neither, with both holding full use of it until it is gone | §109.01.01 |
Network construction is governed at §109.03.01.02(d) and (e): finish-to-start relationships generally guide the sequence and other types are explained in the narrative; negative lag is not used; every activity carries at least one predecessor and one successor, except milestones and the first and last activity; constraints are used only where the Contract defines the restriction. Any activity longer than 10 work days is explained in the narrative each time it occurs, and submittal review activities run no shorter than 30 days.
Three project classifications, and Type B is the default
The opening sentence of §109.01 decides which of the requirements above reach a given project. The Administration classifies projects by complexity and cost into three types: Type A, a bar chart schedule; Type B, a CPM schedule for typical projects; and Type C, a CPM schedule for complex projects. Type B applies unless the Invitation for Bids designates otherwise — so the CPM tier is where a Maryland project lands by default, and the bar chart tier is the exception that has to be selected into.
That default is worth stating plainly, because tiering by complexity and cost is common among the agencies compared on this site and the default usually runs the other way: the lesser requirement applies unless a bid item or a special provision adds the network requirement. Here the Administration makes the determination, the IFB records it, and silence selects CPM.
Type C builds on Type B rather than replacing it. A Type C schedule meets every Type B requirement and adds resource loading — a project-specific resource dictionary, with labour and equipment assigned to each construction activity through the software's resource module, and named exemptions including submittal review, long-lead fabrication, third-party work outside the Contractor's control and contractual wait periods (§109.03.01.03(a)). A Type C project may also submit a preliminary CPM schedule to start work sooner, which buys a 90-day window inside which the full schedule has to reach acceptance (§109.03.01.03(b)).
Retained logic, stated in the specification itself
§109.01 states that the CPM techniques used to monitor the work use retained logic, and §109.03.01.02 and §109.03.01.03 repeat it for Type B and Type C alongside the precedence diagramming method. This is unusual. Retained logic against progress override is a scheduling-software setting deciding how out-of-sequence progress is recalculated, and most agencies that care about it say so in a review manual, a template, or a list of required software settings rather than in the specification itself. Maryland states it three times in the book.
It matters because the setting changes the computed dates: a schedule progressed out of sequence can finish on one date under retained logic and another under progress override, from the same activities and the same relationships. This project computes dates from the imported file and reports the scheduling setting the file records against the clause.
The clause pairs with the out-of-sequence rule at §109.03.02.02(c): such work is explained in the narrative, and a condition still unresolved 30 days after the activity started is corrected through a formal revision. Together they treat out-of-sequence progress as a temporary state with a deadline on it.
A defined-terms list that carries requirements
§109.01.01 is a long definitions subsection, and several entries do more work than a glossary usually does.
- Float is defined as shared between the parties, and that definition is the whole of Maryland's float allocation — there is no separate ownership clause.
- Critical Path is defined against the longest path, becoming the critical path at the point where the longest path carries zero or less total float.
- Time Impact Analysis is defined as prospective and modelled, while Schedule Time Impact Analysis is defined separately as quantifying an impact and apportioning its effects to the responsible party — the Contractor prepares it, and the Administration evaluates it.
- Work Day excludes weekends, State holidays and adverse weather days, which connects to the calendar requirements at §109.03.01.02(f): uniquely named project calendars, a calendar-day and a work-day calendar, specialty calendars for temperature-sensitive work, and a table of minimum expected work days per month by region of the State that the IFB may modify.
Extensions of the Substantial Completion Date
§109.03.04 narrows what an extension request can rest on. Only delays to activities affecting the Substantial Completion Date or an Incentive/Disincentive Date are considered. Requests are written, separate from the update narrative, and separated again by cause — changes the Administration directs go in apart from other alleged delays. Each carries a Time Impact Analysis describing the method used and the alleged cause, with supporting documentation and an account of the Contractor's efforts to mitigate.
Weather delay takes its own route, justified under GP-8.08(d)(1) and shown through a Time Impact Analysis. §109.03.04.01 closes off one argument directly: departure from the work-day assumptions in the calendar table at §109.03.01.02(f) does not itself justify an extension. §109.03.04.02 adds that a weather request is analysed for direct impact to activities on the longest path rather than by counting the bad weather days encountered.
Excusability, entitlement and the apportioning of responsibility are the reviewing authority's to determine. This project computes dates and float from the imported file and checks what the file contains against the clauses cited.
What this page does not tell you
- It does not tell you which clauses govern your project. The incorporated contract documents govern — the edition the contract names, every special provision, and any modification the IFB makes to the requirements above. An agency's name alone does not settle it.
- It cannot tell you your project classification. The Administration sets the type and the IFB records it. Type B applies where the IFB is silent, but which type applies is a fact about a particular procurement, and neither this page nor a schedule file establishes it.
- TC-5.02 was not read. GP-8.04 routes Administration Contracts to TC-5.02 for the Notice to Proceed and project schedule provisions. That document was not obtained, so any requirement carried only there is not established here.
- Many requirements are facts about a submission, not about a schedule. The 20-day and 7-day clocks, the narrative contents and the printed activity chart are none of them recorded in an exported schedule file. Silence about them here is not a statement that they were met.
- There is no rule pack behind this page, only a reading of Section 109 and GP-8.04 with every requirement cited to the subsection it came from.
- This project computes and reports; it does not decide submissions. It states what the imported schedule contains and checks it against the clauses cited, and refuses to decide where the file does not carry what a clause needs.
Related pages
- How state DOT scheduling specifications compare.
- Neighbouring readings: NJDOT · VDOT · WVDOH.
- UFGS scheduling requirements.
- The XER format and calendars in an XER file.
- Who owns float.
- Glossary — retained logic, longest path, total float, data date.
- What the engine does and its limitations.
- The conformance rule catalogue and the standards map.
Source: web/pages/mdotsha-scheduling.md. Source commit date: 2026-09-11.