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Research carried out in the UK suggests that safety problems such as tailgating and speeding are common on UK motorways. According to the survey carried out jointly by road safety body Brake and insurance firm Direct Line, 57% of UK drivers admit to tailgating while 60% admit breaking the speed limit by 16km/h (10mph) or more. Male drivers are far the worst offenders however.

Dr Shanjiang Zhu, assistant professor of engineering at George Mason University in Virginia, USA, is the recipient of the International Transport Forum’s 2014 Young Researcher of the Year Award. Dr Zhu was selected by an international jury of experts for his work on choosing the best strategies against traffic congestion. He is being presented with the distinction on 21st May in Leipzig, Germany during the opening plenary of the Annual Summit of transport ministers organised by the International Transport F

Sharing the road can be a challenge – image courtesy of World Highways reader Ken Tutu

The Senate Environment & Public Works Committee in the US has approved a six-year reauthorisation of the federal highway programme. The move will be of major importance for the transportation construction industry, which has suffered from low levels of business in recent years. This six year package will provide a major stimulus to business for contractors and equipment firms alike, providing new jobs, as well as helping boost improvements to the US transportation network. The president of the American Roa

Two Turkish contractors have been awarded a major road project in Iraq. The package of works is worth some US$415 million and the deal requires the construction work to be completed within three years. The Turkish contractors are Elitas Insaat, Kur Insaat Ticaret ve Sanayi, and Intas Insaat Taahhut Ticaret. The contract is for the 60-Metre Road project in Sulaymaniyah.

A proposal for an orbital tunnel in UK capital London has been put forward and is now being evaluated. The plan calls for a 35km underground ring road in central London that would carry traffic around the city, in a bid to help reduce the capital’s current chronic congestion. Called the Inner Orbital Route, the tunnel project has an estimated cost of €36.8 billion (£30 billion) and would also include two new crossings of the River Thames. Transport for London (TfL) has been tasked with the job of evaluating

Chicago Pneumatic (CP) has unveiled its comprehensive new concrete equipment range. In applications from walls to floor slabs, the range has products to cover every step of the job, from vibration and levelling to finishing and cutting. Freshly poured concrete has air voids which must be removed by vibration to increase its density and finished strength. Depending on the concrete’s depth and slump, this can be achieved using a poker or screed. Customers can now choose mechanical, electric or pneumatic p

The Italian Samoter and Asphaltica 2014 joint exhibition run in Verona, Italy attracted in excess of 40,000 visitors. According to the organisers, the response to the jointly run shows reveals signs of steady recovery for the European market. Of those visitors some 15% came from outside Italy and from 55 countries in all. The top ten nations represented in terms of attendance were France, Germany, Switzerland, USA, The UK, Russia, Slovenia, China, Brazil and Spain. There were 445 exhibiting companies (106 f

The tender process is underway for the third section of Colombia’s Pacific route connecting La Pintada and La Felisa. This route forms part of the Autopistas de la Prosperidad project between Medellin and Buenaventura. The 231km section includes 26 bridges and three tunnels and will cost some US$621.4 million to construct. All three sections plus the Magdalena and Norte highway will be awarded by July 2014 with works due to begin in 2015. The highway stretches should all be finished in 2020. For the first s

The authorities in the UAE have released data showing that over the past 15 years, at least 224 people were killed in crashes involving mini-vans, buses and trucks on the country’s roads. For the most part the fatalities involved workers going to, or coming back from, work and on stretches of major highways with speed limits of 100km/h. The deaths averaged 14/year. Records show the crashes were due to largely to reckless driving by the drivers of the heavy vehicles.

The European Road Federation (ERF) is planning a symposium, ‘The Future Road Infrastructure Challenges’ to be held in Brussels on June 18th. Topics to be covered will include future plans for infrastructure investment, sustainability, intelligent transport systems, financing and innovation. The event will be held at the Hotel Thon and a high number of industry attendees is expected, with a number of firms also exhibiting in an area within the hotel’s conference centre. The ERF says that the event is aimed a

Work is commencing to repair and upgrade Mozambique’s National Road 6 in Sofala Province. The work will take three years to complete and will cost some US$400 million. The project is being carried out by Chinese contractor Anhui Foreign Economic Construction. The upgrades include widening the route, with the stretch between Dondo and Beira being a focus for improvement. The project also includes repairing a number of existing bridges and building several new bridges. Once the upgrade is complete, the route

Munich-based light equipment manufacturer Wacker Neuson reports a healthy balance sheet despite difficult conditions. The company says that group revenue climbed by 13% for the first quarter, compared with the same period last year. This a new record for the first quarter of €291.6 million, compared with €257.1 million for the same period in 2013. The performance was affected by currency fluctuations as currency values in many emerging markets as well as the US dollar lost ground against the Euro in the fir

New research shows a drop in motorcyclist deaths in the US. The figures compiled for the Governors Highway Safety Association (GHSA) show a 7% drop in motorcyclist fatalities in the US in 2013, compared with data for the previous year. However, the GHSA cautions that poor weather in 2013 may have had an effect, reducing the total distance travelled by motorcyclists and therefore the numbers of crashes. Research shows 2013 to be only the second year since 1997 in which there has been a drop in motorcyclist d