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Nexus Infrastructure group has signed a contract with the Australian government to deliver the Toowoomba Second Range Crossing project in Queensland state, costing nearly US$1.2 billion.

Nexus will design construct, finance, operate and maintain the 41km route that will bypass the city of Toowoomba, east to west.

Toowomba and district, with a population of around 158,000, is inland 125km west of Queensland's capital city Brisbane, on Australia’s northeast coast.

Funding has been secured for a major highway widening and upgrade project in Bangladesh. The route running from capital Dhaka to Sylhet will be widened sufficiently so that it will feature two lanes running in either direction, enabling it to better cope with the traffic volumes it currently handles. The highway widening project will be funded by the Asian Development Bank (ADB). The feasibility study for the project has already been carried out. The project will be managed by Bangladesh’s Road Transport an

Chinese funding will help deliver the construction of a major new road project in Senegal. A loan worth US$704.6 million will help finance the construction of Senegal’s new 113km highway connecting Touba and Thiès. The contractor China Road and Bridge Construction (CRBC) will carry out the construction works, which is expected to require 45 months to complete. The loan will be paid back over a 25-year period using toll revenues.

Swiss firm Implenia has won the contract to construct the first section of Stockholm’s new bypass in a deal worth €216.7 million. The Förbifart Stockholm road project was awarded by the Swedish Transport Administration, Trafikverket. Implenia won the package of works following its acquisition of Bilfinger Construction and will commence work during October 2015. The section Implenia will work on is called the FSE 403 stretch and the work includes building a 7.2km long, twin tube tunnel as well as slip roads.

It may be early days for using drones – unmanned aerial systems (UAS) -- to map construction sites, but technology and legislation are moving in that direction. At the moment drones can fly within only a 500m radius of the ‘pilot’ standing on the ground, making the flight area a 1km diameter. This is the key limiting issue for any sector, especially road construction, says Jonathan Gill, a robotics engineer and a qualified drone pilot for the past seven years.