News

In a bid to cut India’s high rate of road crashes, the country is working on much tougher penalties for offenders. Drivers that are underage or hold fake licences will face much heavier fines, as well as jail sentences of up to three years and one year respectively. Meanwhile tougher penalties will also be applied to vehicle repairers fitting fake parts, as well as for producers and suppliers of fake parts. Car manufacturers are also being targeted, with fines being imposed for vehicles featuring poor safet

Brazil is continuing to work on its road development programme, despite budgetary restraints due to the country’s difficult economic climate. Responsibility for over 10,000km of road that have had minimal maintenance or improvement works over the previous 15 years will now be taken by the Federal Government. An overall lack of funding has combined with disagreements between federal and state authorities as to who should pay for road upgrades, resulting in no work being carried out at all. Meanwhile improv

Global building materials giant Cemex says that as part of its commemoration of World Environment Day 2016 on Sunday 5 June, its El Carmen Conservation Program is celebrating 15 years of continued scientific research, habitat preservation, and species restoration. With over 140,000 hectares, the cross-border El Carmen private conservation region between Mexico and the United States is said to be one of the most biodiversity rich areas in North America, and one of the five great wilderness ecosystems in

Global building materials giant Cemex says that as part of its commemoration of World Environment Day 2016 on Sunday 5 June, its El Carmen Conservation Program is celebrating 15 years of continued scientific research, habitat preservation, and species restoration. With over 140,000 hectares, the cross-border El Carmen private conservation region between Mexico and the United States is said to be one of the most biodiversity rich areas in North America, and one of the five great wilderness ecosystems in

New predictions suggest that 30%-50% of vehicles on Singapore’s roads by 2050 will be electric. The predictions come from research carried out by Nanyang Technological University (NTU). Singapore is planning on increasing the number of electric vehicles on its roads in a bid to cut urban pollution. The so-called electro-mobility road map has been revealed by the National Research Foundation and the National Climate Change Secretariat. Singapore suffers from pollution caused by vehicle emissions, so the long

Work is now starting on a new stretch of motorway in Hungary. The project was awarded to the Colas Hungaria-Colas Ut consortium and is worth some €54.74 million. The work involves building a new section of the M35 motorway connecting road number 481 with road number 4 and the contract was awarded by the Hungarian national infrastructure development firm, NIF. Local contractor STR Epito will build a new road connecting road number 47 with the M35, with work starting in July 2016 and due for completion in

European funding will pay for the reconstruction of key infrastructure links in Estonia. During 2015, the country started work on 421 projects being funded by the EU. The total value of these 421 projects was €1.082 billion. Some €108.6 million of this EU funding was used for road construction, with €45.7 million being used to rebuild the Väo-Jüri section of Talinn’s ring road.

The El Salvador Government has failed to finish its planned programme of investments in public infrastructure projects. The country has implemented just 66% of the budget it had previously allotted for infrastructure work during 2015. In all the planned budget accounted for US$682 million. The country has so far spent $206.2 million of the $1.05 billion it has targeted for its 2016 infrastructure budget.

Topcon Positioning Group and Bentley Systems have set up direct communication between Bentley’s design applications and Topcon mobile work force products with the upcoming MAGNET 4.0 release. With the direct communication from MAGNET Enterprise to Bentley’s ProjectWise, users of Topcon’s family of MAGNET and 3D-MC software solutions can now, while working in the field, access or receive i-models created by Bentley’s OpenRoads design modeling technology. By the end of June, survey data and as-built

Scientists at MIT - the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in the United States - have reportedly developed a type of concrete that may be stronger and more durable than traditional cement. According to the MIT News, a paper recently published in the journal Construction and Building Materials, scientists compared cement paste with the structure of natural materials including bones, shells and sea sponges. These are exceptionally strong because of the way they are arranged at both the microscopic lev

Vienna-based Strabag reported output volume of nearly €2,257 million in the first quarter of 2016 financial year, a decline of 9%. However, Q1 EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation) improved by 13% to €-57.71 million. The order backlog also decreased on the year, coming to rest at €13,976.62 million on 31 March 2016 – an 8% decline versus the first quarter of 2015. The number of employees fell by 3% to 68,808. This reduction took place almost entirely among blue-col

Nearly a third of Sri Lanka’s new US$11.5 billion transport master plan will be spent on road development in and around the capital Colombo. The plan, unveiled by the Western Region Megapolis Planning Project (WRMPP) – covers the next 20 years. Work will start on the first projects withinsix month, according to a report by the Daily Mirror newspaper. The other two-thirds will be spent on a light rail transit system, railway electrification, bus modernisation and inland waterways. The project is to

France’s overseas development agency, Agence Française de Dévelopement, has earmarked US$200 million for the planned Kampala-Jinja Expressway in Uganda. Construction is expected to start next year on the 77km four-to-six lane toll road, a public-private partnership. The expressway will start at Nakawa, a neighbourhood of the capital city Kampala, and end at the New Jinja Bridge, now under construction in the town of Njeru. The New Jinja Bridge, also referred to as the Second Nile Bridge or the New

Construction of the Escenica Alterna tunnel in the Mexican resort port city of Acapulco is expected to be finished by June 2017. Work started on the 3.1km tunnel in 2013 with completion originally scheduled for October 2015. But financial problems delayed the US$200 million project which is now around three-quarters complete. Work by the contractor IDEAL - part of conglomerate Grupo Carso - includes construction of an elevated road connecting tunnel with Metlapil motorway.