Road Structures

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

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

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

Chilean construction organisation CChC has published a study saying the country needs to spend some US$12.5 billion on road upgrades and construction over the next 10 years. This is because the country’s vehicle numbers are increasing, according to Business News Americas. The report says that Chile needs to expand its road network by 12,500km to 90,000km by 2023 to keep pace with the growing volume of traffic. Some 4,000km of the proposed new road should be highway or toll road, according to the study. To r

The Humber Bridge Board in the UK is set to deploy an automatic tolling system at the famous structure near Kingston upon Hull in northern England from the autumn of 2014 to the spring of 2015. The number of manual payment toll booths is being reduced to three from six to accommodate two free-flow lanes and automatic tolling infrastructure. The updated booths are anticipated to be operational in June 2014 or early July 2014. Until the installation of the automated system is complete, the toll booths will co

Austria is to invest €1 billion in its road network in 2014, with a further €1.3 billion investment in 2015 funded by drivers and the transport industry. Of these sums, 60% will be spent on new construction projects, while 40% will be used for maintenance works.

A consortium has won a key construction and concession contract in Russia for a stretch of the Moscow-St Petersburg highway. The construction consortium comprises contractor Vinci and Russian Bank VTB. The deal involves around US$1.7 billion of public financing for the construction phase and some $983 million for operation for the period of the contract. The concession package involves construction of the highway section, as well as operation for a 24 year period. The construction work will be carried out b

Italian civil engineering group Astaldi is expecting to obtain a €1.7 billion contract from Russia that would see them build a 140km stretch of the Moscow-St Petersburg motorway. Astaldi chairman Paolo Astaldi said that the deal for lots seven and eight of the motorway is “probable”. Astaldi is in a consortium with Turkish partner Ictas, with which it has already banked deals in Russia. The contract will be awarded by the motorway concessionaires, VTB and Vinci.

The Peruvian government has announced that the US$182 million construction of a road to link Tacna (Peru) with La Paz (Bolivia), via Collpa, will begin in 2015. This new road will benefit more than 268,000 people living in the south of Peru.