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The IRF has announced the winners of its 2015 Global Road Achievement Awards. The winners were revealed by International Road Federation chairman Abdullah A Al-Mogbel. In this year’s competition, the IRF highlighted 12 projects from around the world, each leading the way in innovation across major road and highway disciplines. The selection was made by an international panel of senior road development specialists.

A new book is available that is said to offer insight into green road design and construction. Called the Handbook of Road Ecology, this publication is the result of over three years of work involving collaboration of over 100 of the world’s leading road ecology experts from 25 countries. Dr Rodney van der Ree, Associate Professor, deputy director, Australian Research Centre for Urban Ecology, University of Melbourne, Australia, was the lead editor, and instrumental in making the handbook a reality. The

The World Bank Group is providing funding worth US$500 million for the development of a key transport corridor in the north-west of the country. This comes under the East Africa Regional Transport, Trade & Development Facilitation Project. The general aim of the project to build the corridor is to provide economic and social development for communities in the counties of West Pokot and Turkana. The government of Kenya will contribute the remainder needed for the $676 million project.

Chinese banks are providing US$297 million in loans for road construction in the Kyrgyz Republic. The loan will be used to carry out Phase II of the programme to construct the new North-South road. The project is for the construction of the 96km Aral-Kazarman road and also includes building a 700m stretch of tunnel along the route as part of the works.

Plans are progressing in Kazakhstan for the project to construct the Big Almaty Ring Road. A number of investors are involved in financing the project and are planning to invest US$1.2 billion in the ring road. The contract will include construction and operation of the project. Strong interest has been shown in the project by the EBRD, the Asian Development Bank, IFC, and the Islamic Development Bank. Meanwhile according to Kazakhstan's Committee of Roads, the economic effect of the Western Europe-Western

The UK’s Transport Rsearch Laboratory (TRL) is partnering with Transpolis in France to open an international test facility. This new partnership enables TRL and French road safety testing facility, Transpolis to deliver a full-scale testing service to a global client base. The partners are offering full scale safety and security barrier impact testing services. The partnership provides customers with a variety of full scale impact testing programmes from Transpolis’ test site in Lyon, France.

According to a report from US-based research firm Freedonia, world demand for construction machinery will grow by 3.9%/year to $218 billion by 2019. The Asia/Pacific region, Central and South America, and the Africa/Mideast region are all expected to register above average gains looking ahead as construction spending, particularly on infrastructure projects, continues to increase. More than two-thirds of all additional construction equipment demand generated between 2014 and 2019 will be in China according

Canada’s infrastructure minister, Denis Label, officially broke ground for Montreal’s replacement Champlain Bridge, saying the project will likely cost US$3.42 billion. The 3.4km Champlain Bridge Corridor Project, including spans and highway expansions, is expected to be completed by 2019. SNC-Lavalin, the 50% stakeholder in the winning consortium Signature on the Saint-Lawrence, recently announced it had finalised the deal with new Champlain Bridge owner Infrastructure Canada. Signature on the Saint-

Columbian president Juan Manuel Santos Colombia has said pension fund money could help finance the country’s ambitious 4G motorway projects. Columbia has 35 road projects underway costing more than US$11.7 billion, including the first two 4G tender waves with six public-private partnerships that have already been approved. During a banking convention held in the coastal city of Cartagena in mid-June, Banco Davivienda president Efrain Forero lending capacity studies have been completed for 4GH projects

One of the world’s largest cranes has placed the first steel girder assembly for the approach span of the new NY Bridge, often called the Tappen Zee Bridge in New York. The barge-mounted I Lift NY super crane with its nearly 100m boom slowly picked up the 125m unit from its delivery barge and gently lowered it onto concrete pedestals in the Hudson River, near the Rockland County side of the bridge. The super crane will install even larger sections of the new bridge, some of which weigh around 907tonne

Plans are being considered for either a tunnel or bridge to connect Sri Lanka and India. The preferred route would be from Dhanushkodi in India to Talaimannar on the Sri Lankan island of Mannar. Building this 23km link could cost around US$3.62 billion according to estimates. Spanning the Pak Strait with a bridge might leave such a structure vulnerable to tsunami as well as typhoons however. It is worth noting that Sri Lanka’s south western coast was devastated some years ago by a tsunami precipitated by an

Funding for a major freeway project in Iran could come from foreign sources. The Tabriz-Marand-Bazargan freeway looks likely to be built using foreign investment. A plan for the project has been approved by the Organisation for Investment, Economic and Technical Assistance of Iran (OIETAI). This new freeway forms part of a larger programme of road and highway construction in Iran. The aim is to increase the total length of freeways across the country from the present 2,360km to 5,200km in the next four year