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Significant gains in the cost of construction of the highway link between Schiphol Airport in the Netherlands and the country’s commercial centre, Amsterdam. The highway links Schiphol with Amsterdam as well as Almere and is being upgraded to increase its capacity as it suffers from heavy congestion and long delays at peak periods. The cost of this work is expected to be some €300 million more than was originally expected due to technical challenges that were unforeseen when the project commenced. The total

Indonesia’s Ministry of Public Works and Housing plans to allocate US$415.3 million in 2016 for the Trans Papua road project. The Indonesian Government’s plan is for the link to be ready for use and connecting the whole of Papua by 2019. However in excess of $830 million is required to fund work on the entire 4,325km route. Over 10km of bridges still remain to be constructed along with 827km of roads. Meanwhile of the existing 3,498km of road, only 2,075km are surfaced with asphalt at present while 1,423km

MISK wins tender for Moscow’s Yuzhnaya Rokada road The Moscow Engineering and Construction Company (MISK) has won the tender for construction of the second section of Moscow’s Southern lateral highway. MISK was the only contractors tendering for the contract, worth nearly US$74.3 million, for the section called Yuzhnaya Rokada. Details include construction of 5km of road, essential side lanes, more than 300m of overpasses and turnoffs. Work is expected to take nearly 20 months. The tender win co

The Portuguese road operator Infraestruturas de Portugal is to tender a €13 million contract for refurbishment of the international bridge over the Guadiana river, connecting Vila Real de Santo Antonio in Portugal and Ayamonte in Spain. The work will take 18 months and the cost will be shared by both countries, a report in Diário Económico said. Around 80% of the river is in Portugal. The river flows east to west through Spain, then south through Portugal, then forming the Spanish-Portuguese border

The Swiss government has created a fund for street and urban transport works to help ease what it says will be a deficit of around €1.26 billion each year up to by 2030. The fund will be created from a rise in road fuel tax from €0.27 to €0.33. Added money will come from a tax on electric vehicles due to start in 2020 and which will raise around €84 million a year, rising to around €275 million. The road maintenance fund also will receive around €366 million from taxes on imported cars and €320 mil

Plans for the Pan Borneo Highway project are gathering pace in Malaysia. The tender process for the project will commence in 2016. This is being handled by the Malaysian Works Ministry. The first section of the Pan Borneo Highway project will involve tenders worth US$4.17 billion alone. This stretch of the route will run from Telok Melano-Miri through Kuching, Sibu, Bintulu, Serian and Sematan. The tenders will be for 10 separate packages of works. The project schedule calls for work on these 10 sections of

A series of loans from the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB) will help finance transportation projects in Costa Rica. Totaling around US$1 billion, the loans will allow a substantial package of works to get underway. This will be of major importance to Costa Rica as it will unlock several key road and transport projects so far held back by the availability of suitable funding. However, the Costa Rican authorities have yet to announce all the road projects intended for construction. So far only three hi

A major road project has been awarded in China, which will improve connections to capital Beijing. The Beijing Xingyan Expressway Project was won by a consortium comprising China Railway Construction and its units China Railway 14th Bureau Group as well as China Railway 12th Bureau Group. This is a massive construction project and is worth around US$2.06 billion. The project is being handled under the PPP model and will take 39 months to construct while the consortium’s concession package will be for a peri

The Finnish Transport Agency has signed an agreement with a consortium formed by Skanska Infra, Pöyry and Ramboll for work on Highway 6 between Taavetti and Lappeenranta. This consortium also carried out the project development phase, which was launched in March 2015. The work is being carried out as an alliance-based project ensuring that the client and consortium are responsible for project design and construction, share the risks and opportunities and form a joint organisation. The work calls for Hig

A joint venture formed of Balfour Beatty and Carillion has won the tender process for a €401 million (£292 million) road widening package in the UK. The joint venture will commence with preparatory works worth €686,680 (£500,000) initially as the main contract is subject to approval of the wider A14 improvement scheme. The aim of the joint venture’s work is to upgrade the A14 between Swavesey and Milton. This forms part of the wider A14 Cambridge to Huntingdon road improvement scheme. The joint venture is a

A new dual carriageway is planned for Nigeria’s Cross River State, in the South East of the country. The dual carriageway will connect the city of Calabar in the south of the state with Obudu in the north of the state. The project has had its official ground breaking ceremony carried out by the country’s president, Muhammadu Buhari. The dual carriageway will stretch around 260km in all according to reports in the Nigerian press. This new dual carriageway will help cut journey times as the condition of the e

Fashionable they aren’t, but the wearing of high-visibility clothing is increasingly either recommended by businesses or made mandatory by law, especially for construction workers on every kind of site. But has the use of “hi-vis” clothing, especially the vest, gone too far? In Britain, the wearing of the hi-viz clothing has taken off - literally, according to a BBC television news report that shows a flock of chickens wearing the fluorescent coloured vest.

The very people who urge drivers to use more caution are not immune to driving errors themselves, as the video here shows. Speed is sometimes involved and so is simply lack of due care. A speeding police car with its lights flashing and horns blaring may have the right of way, in law or by courtesy, but in many cases the police driver should take note of dangerous situations. At times police drivers also can make a simply mistake, as recently happened in the Spanish Mediterranean city of Barcelona. A

German engine maker Deutz Group said it will not meet its forecast for the current financial year. A sluggish second quarter with “very low” new orders means revenue is expected to fall by around 20% compared with the forecasted 10% drop, according to a corporate statement. “Consequently, the second half of 2015 will be significantly worse than the first half of the year,” the statement said. “Given the low level of business, Deutz will only be just about break even in terms of EBIT this year. Unt