Bentley’s Protest of California’s Roadway Design Software Procurement Process Is Denied

Only Autodesk Was Allowed to Compete Through Software Benchmark

EXTON, Pa.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Bentley Systems, Incorporated, the leading company dedicated to providing comprehensive software solutions for sustaining infrastructure, today announced that its protest of the California Department of General Services’ (DGS) procurement process for roadway design software (RDS) has been denied. The software was being solicited on behalf of the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans), and the protest denial was issued by the California Office of Administrative Hearings (OAH). The protest was prompted by DGS’ disqualification of Bentley from the bidding due to allegedly inadequate documentation in its written response to Request for Proposal (RFP) RDS 2660-421.

Prior to the public bid opening, two of the three software companies submitting an RFP response (Carlson, headquartered in Kentucky, and Bentley, headquartered in Pennsylvania) had been disqualified, leaving only Autodesk (headquartered in California) to participate in the required software demonstrations to the evaluation committee. In Bentley’s 27-year history of leadership in providing software for civil engineers in every state, this is the first time it has been disqualified from any roadway design software RFP.

CEO Greg Bentley expressed strong disappointment at the denial of Bentley Systems’ protest of the California DGS’ procurement process. Said Greg Bentley, “Having evolved over more than five years of close cooperation with Caltrans to work out how to most effectively move ahead, our bid would have directly saved California taxpayers nearly a million dollars while delivering state-of-the-art designs. This was particularly disappointing since our disqualification was based on disagreements over the adequacy of a few textual descriptions in our response, not the competitive evaluation of technical substance and costs that I think we and Californians deserved.”

The public record of the January 2011 bid opening clearly shows that Bentley had the highest technical score based on the written proposals, yet it was denied the opportunity to participate in the technical benchmark demonstration. Bentley’s cost bid, which was thus never opened, was substantially lower than Autodesk’s cost bid.

Bentley’s roadway design software offerings continue to be the best-practice standard of choice for 45 of the 50 state departments of transportation in the United States, as well as of government transportation agencies across the globe, underlying innovative solutions that promote better, faster, and more cost-effective integrated project delivery. Bentley Systems has worked with Caltrans for almost 20 years and looks forward to maintaining its constructive relationship by supporting Caltrans’ growing use of many other Bentley information modeling products, including MicroStation, its Haestad Methods software for the design and analysis of stormwater drainage, and its “BrIM” software for bridge design and analysis.

About Bentley Systems, Incorporated

Bentley is the global leader dedicated to providing architects, engineers, geospatial professionals, constructors, and owner-operators with comprehensive software solutions for sustaining infrastructure. Bentley’s mission is to empower its users to leverage information modeling through integrated projects for high-performing intelligent infrastructure. Its solutions encompass the MicroStation platform for infrastructure design and modeling, the ProjectWise platform for infrastructure project team collaboration and work sharing, and the AssetWise platform for infrastructure asset operations – all supporting a broad portfolio of interoperable applications and complemented by worldwide professional services. Founded in 1984, Bentley has grown to nearly 3,000 colleagues in more than 45 countries and $500 million in annual revenues. Since 2001, the company has invested more than $1 billion in research, development, and acquisitions.

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