Exactly! And it doesn't even have to be a fallback. The same company could have won (or "won" if you know what I mean) many/majority of those tenders and are intentionally spread thin. Because once you win it, you leave a token crew there, and move to win another one, leave token crew again and again. So they're just doing everything all at once very slowly while being paid a lot.
Also this doesn't even have to be a public works type of job. They do this kind of stuff for private works like house construction. 30 people show up and start working, and after couple of days you have 2 guys working for weeks while others are somewhere else.
I was very surprised when I saw repaving of couple of street intersections in Chicago. Those guys did it like they were on a competition. Really fast and really nice. They were done in couple of days. I couldn't believe it. In my part of the world, the same job would take months, and I'm not even kidding.
Also this doesn't even have to be a public works type of job. They do this kind of stuff for private works like house construction. 30 people show up and start working, and after couple of days you have 2 guys working for weeks while others are somewhere else.
I was very surprised when I saw repaving of couple of street intersections in Chicago. Those guys did it like they were on a competition. Really fast and really nice. They were done in couple of days. I couldn't believe it. In my part of the world, the same job would take months, and I'm not even kidding.