Features

Maryvonne Plessis-Fraissard highlights that the key importance of rural roads in the context of global development is only now being fully recognised, is not receiving enough attention and is facing vital new challenges

Safety in tunnels is of paramount importance, and in 2014 the European Union will be introducing new safety rules for such structures. As in other parts of the world, many tunnels under construction will be built to high standards incorporating the latest technologies. Many others are being upgraded, including the Elbetunnel, Hamburg, Germany, where the first tunnel under the River Elbe was built in 1911.

India says it turned its Commonwealth Games into a world-class success, and now it aims to do the same with its infrastructure. Patrick Smith reports. On October, 2010 India put itself on the world stage, and disaster appeared to loom as a catalogue of problems dogged its biggest ever sporting event. Costing nearly US$2 billion to stage, the most expensive Commonwealth Games ever were, according to some, in doubt.

Reducing emissions and increasing the use of reclaimed asphalt pavement is among the key aims of plant manufacturers. Patrick Smith reports. Lower emissions and the use of recycled materials coupled with reduced costs are the aims of manufacturers of modern asphalt plants.

Some of the bottlenecks on the multi-lane Mittlere Ring, Munich, Germany, one of the main arterial roads circling the city centre have been eliminated by the addition of new tunnels. The Luise-Kiesselbach Square, the last section of this road improvement effort, is an important traffic hub south-west of the city where motorways A96 from Lindau and A5 from Garmisch meet, causing long delays in daily rush-hour traffic, writes Patrick Smith.

The future financing of the European road network has again become a hot topic in Brussels

The northern Spanish city of Bilbao looks set to benefit from a major tunnel construction project aimed at reducing traffic congestion on its vehicle clogged streets. The city is building a new underground metro section, Line 3, which will help carry commuters to and from the city's commercial centre and help reduce vehicle journey times on the surface. This project is also making use of the latest piece of tunnelling equipment from Sandvik, the MT520 roadheader, a powerful machine designed and built at

A new bridge over the River Danube between Bulgaria and Romania is expected to benefit to the economies of both nations. Krasimir Krastanov reports

Articulated dump trucks offers a versatile solution for earthmoving needs, Mike Woof reports. The articulated dump truck is now used worldwide in a huge array of earthmoving applications. The market for these versatile machines was developed largely in Northern Europe at first, before spreading to other areas of the world and ADTs can now be regarded as pieces of equipment with global appeal for earthmoving and extraction applications.

German firm Wirtgen is to begin marketing its concrete slipforming machines in the US, through its Wirtgen America operation. The move comes with the launch two new concrete slipformers developed just for the US market, the SP15 and SP25.

Engine manufacturers have had to jump through regulatory hoops in recent years, meeting requirements for diesels with ever cleaner exhaust emissions. When this programme was first proposed, many believed the final aims could not be achieved. However on January 1st 2011, the Tier 4 Interim/Stage IIIB emissions regulations will come into force in North America and Europe and all the major diesel manufacturers will have suitable products at the ready. The Tier 4 Interim/Stage IIIB emissions regulations require

Paver innovations The manufacturers are also rolling out several new and improved concrete paving models, with versatility and adaptability high on the agenda. GOMACO is now offering a novel independent IDBI attachment that allows dowel bar insertion behind a paver to form the transverse joint. The IDBI attachment is a new generation bar insertion system.

The strong road construction market in Morocco is helping boost the quarrying market in the country substantially. One such operation exists near the town of Ben Slimane, situated north of Casablanca. Agregat Oued Cherrat (AOC) owns a 65ha quarry, one of the largest of the 14 in the region and when the firm decided to buy new excavators, it also opted to buy Hitachi machines. AOC placed an order for one ZX330-3, with the second delivered three months later and the company now has three ZX330-3s, with a four

The Simge Group operates a massive and highly modern quarrying operation close to the Turkish city of Bursan, which provides a major supply of aggregates and asphalt to the country's highway construction sector. This quarry produces around 4 million tonnes/year of crushed limestone and is the largest of the five quarries the Simge Group runs in Turkey, which have a combined output of 12 million tonnes/year. The huge site has an asphalt output of 500,000tonnes/year, again a significant portion of the 1.2 mil

Spanning Manahawkin Bay, and carrying traffic along Route 72 between Long Beach Island and Manahawkin, New Jersey, USA, the Dorland J. Henderson Memorial Bridge, known as the Manahawkin Bay Bridge, was in need of repair. New Jersey Department of Transportation (NJDOT) specified Transpo T-17 MMA polymer concrete patch and T-18 MMA polymer concrete slurry overlay as approved materials for the 12,000m² bridge rehabilitation project on the steel girder bridge. All the bridge deck spalls were prepared and patche