Features

It’s been slow progress on Serbia’s Corridor X project. Gordon Feller reports. Back in the early 2000’s, the European Union undertook an ambitious programme to link the main cities of its south-eastern region. This involved connecting five key seaports – the Greek cities of Patras, Igoumenitsa, Piraeus and Thessaloniki as well as Romania’s Black Sea city of Constanta. Initially the plan involved two motorways across Greece. The first was a new 780km route including a branch to Ormenio on Greece’s north-eas

Safety on the New Silk Graduates of the IRF Fellowship Program have contributed to a landmark study produced by the Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS) aimed at minimising the socio-economic costs of road accidents in Kazakhstan. Asia’s infrastructure push offers opportunities to minimise road crashes, which cost many developing countries 2-5% of GDP each year. To help set priorities that address connectivity and safety, this study analysed 13,000km of highways, or 13.4% of the Kazakhstan

Against a background of unprecedented connectivity investments bridging East and West, the formation of a regional committee will assist member organisations. It will allow them to gain access to a wider pool of knowledge on regional infrastructure programmes, and solutions designed to optimise road investments. Central Asia is a loosely defined geographic area bridging the eastern fringes of Europe to the borders of China. Common factors between these countries include a shared history of relatively recen

Effective monitoring of aggregates stockpiles as well as face excavation can deliver greater quarrying efficiency. One of the latest innovations in quarrying is the use of drones, which provide major benefits for optimising operations. The use of affordable drone hardware and software solutions can help reduce stockpile inventory time by as much as 70%. Through the recent partnership between Trimble and Propeller, drone data can now be an everyday tool in quarries by proving a transformational impact

With over £300 billion of investment in infrastructure planned over the next four years in the UK, materials testing firm CET is gearing up to service a lot more projects – Kristina Smith visited the newest laboratory near Heathrow to find out more. The CET Group has ambitious plans. Over the next four years it wants to double the size of its business, which in the last year turned over £27 million. “There’s a lot of positivity out there,” said Gary Corrigan, managing director of the group’s infrastructu

Techniques can help in preventing cracks in underlying layers from penetrating to new surface layers - *Farzad Tooryani. For road repairs involving milling off worn asphalt surface layers before repaving, the use of crack sealing is a crucial task. This can help to prevent full reflection of existing cracks from underneath layers into the new wearing course. Once the milling work is complete, locating existing cracks is a crucial task for the site supervisor. Efficient routing equipment that is easy to hand

The steering group of the FIA High Level Panel for Road Safety met on 8 September at the FIA offices in Paris. Susanna Zammataro - IRF executive director and member of the advisory board to the FIA HLP – was part of the group that met up to reflect on the progress achieved thus far and to discuss the work plan of the HLP for the upcoming year. Discussions touched upon included the ongoing progress and establishment of the UN Global Road Safety Fund as well as the role of the panel in building support

IRF Geneva is collaborating with Shell India to improve road safety in the Hazira Port Area in India. The Hazira port area is an industrial area that is home to large companies such as Shell, Reliance Petrochemicals, Essar Steel, Larsen and Toubro, Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC). This area is also the location for a port operated by Adani, and this port is one of the most important ports in India for the handling of containers. The area also supplies almost 80% of the total demand for gas in India

“With two months to the WRM 2017, I invite you to this global event which promises to be an excellent forum to hobnob with senior professionals in the industry and forge promising associations,” Kiran K Kapila, IRF chairman. This global event scheduled to be held in Delhi, India on November 14-17, 2017 is shaping up as a high profile event with confirmation of the participation of senior professionals from the road and mobility sectors of a number of countries. These include Abu Dhabi, Australia, Bangladesh

New developments in tunnelling technologies offer contractors greater efficiencies when constructing new bores. Tunnel boring machines (TBMs) are widely being used in major projects such as the Brenner Base Tunnel in the Austrian Alps. Full face TBMs are highly sophisticated machines featuring a rotating drilling head, which removes the material, and, depending on the type of construction, secures the excavated tunnel with shotcrete, rock bolts and wire mesh or prefabricated segments of reinforced concrete.

Concrete producer CEMEX is playing a key role in the construction of one of Poland’s main highway projects. The new S7 highway link will connect the Baltic coast to cities such as Warsaw, Kraków, and the Slovakian border region. In all over 400,000m3 of concrete is being supplied by CEMEX for the highway, with the material being used to build civil structures such as flyovers and bridges as well as drainage.

Benninghoven plant owned by Breisach-based Johann Joos Tief- und Straßenbauunternehmung is 40 years old but now features new technology, increasing its range of capabilities. To meet demands for the use of RAP, the plant has been reconfigured with the latest technology from Benninghoven. This new addition to the plant will allow its facility as a Recycling Priority Plant (RPP). The plant upgrade features a Benninghoven BA 4000 system with a capacity of up to 320tonnes/hour.

Benninghoven plant owned by Breisach-based Johann Joos Tief- und Straßenbauunternehmung is 40 years old but now features new technology, increasing its range of capabilities. To meet demands for the use of RAP, the plant has been reconfigured with the latest technology from Benninghoven. This new addition to the plant will allow its facility as a Recycling Priority Plant (RPP). The plant upgrade features a Benninghoven BA 4000 system with a capacity of up to 320tonnes/hour.

A wide range of innovative earthmover solutions is now coming to market - Mike Woof writes Generally with major construction equipment exhibitions timed for the second quarter of each year, this is when manufacturers will roll out their latest earthmoving solutions. However 2017 has turned out to be something of an anomaly, with the major firms continuing to unveil new models. Firms have introduced new wheeled loaders, excavators, and dozers, although arguably, some of the most interesting developments

Next year Volvo CE will be testing electric, hybrid and autonomous vehicles in a quarry. Carl Slotte, head of sales for EMEA, says no company by itself will win market share. David Arminas reports from Germany The driver of the charter bus stood outside the hotel in Trier, Germany, and waved at a passing local city bus. “I know the driver,” he told one of the assembled journalists waiting for the group’s ride to the nearby Volvo CE plant. “He is retired but they brought him back because young people th