Features

Wirtgen is broadening its recycling equipment line-up with its latest KMA220 RAP plant. This mobile machine has been designed to meet a need from contractors for a versatile plant that can be set up quickly when needed. The machine offers a mixing capacity of up to 220 tonnes/hour for the production of high-quality cold mixes for use on major highways carrying heavy traffic volumes from recycled material. The KMA220 replaces the earlier KMA200 model and offers a 10% increase in throughput. Power comes from

Greater GPS accuracy suggests closer tolerances for surveying and machine control functions What happens in the future for GPS surveying and machine control could depend on satellite choice and signals. Right now there are around 30 satellites in orbit, largely built by the US, but by 2012 that could rise to 120 as Europe, China, India and Russia fully enter the market. A chequered history has faced the European's Galileo system. At long last, the finance appears to be in place and the European Commission a

Increasingly, and where possible, roads are being built in tunnels often for environmental reasons, writes Patrick Smith As part of the new M7 motorway development in the southwest of Ireland, the four-lane route crosses the River Shannon near Limerick, before it flows into the Atlantic. Centrepiece of the 10km long Limerick Southern Ring Road is the required tunnelling (675m long), which including the north and south entrance and exit ramps, means it will be 915m long. Completion of the work is planned for

Built in 1937 and still the ninth longest suspension bridge in the world, the Golden Gate Bridge across San Francisco Bay remains in fine shape despite its age - Andrew Bardin Williams writes The Golden Gate Bridge turned 75 years old on May 27 and continues to play a key role in the transportation, engineering, construction and ITS communities. The structure has played an important historical role, an engineering success that boosted the economy of the region. And it also led the way as the first major pub

A major tunnel project in the Swedish capital Stockholm will mean that roads in a residential area will be safe from workmen repairing power cables. The tunnel will not be visible when completed, but its importance to the city's development is considerable. It means 10km of high voltage cable cutting through a residential area will be replaced with cables laid through the new tunnel, providing sufficient land for some 3,000 badly-needed new homes in an area divided down the middle by Lake Mälaren and the Ba

In 2002, bridge conditions in the State of Oregon were declining. Projections were made that 30% of Oregon's bridges would have weight restriction within 8-years, causing a productivity loss to Oregon's economy of US$123 billion including 88,000 jobs. By 2012, Oregon’s State Bridge Delivery Program had been recognized nationally and internationally with awards for excellence and innovation, most recently scooping IRF’s Global Road Achievement Award for Quality Management.

According to World Health Organisation figures, 307 lives were lost in over 13,000 road accidents in 2011, a figure dominated by male drivers and car occupants. Buoyed by IRF’s Safer Road by Design seminar which preceded the Congress, the Road Safety Unit in the Jamaican Ministry of Transport, Works and Housing is already taking steps to address the presence of turned-down ends and concrete utility poles on the country’s roadsides.

The Ministry of Transport, Works, and Housing of Jamaica is the first recipient of the "IRF Decade of Action Find A Way” Award, an annual competition instituted by IRF Washington Chairman Abdullah Al-Mogbel to recognises outstanding personal commitment to safer roads by national, regional, or city government. Under the leadership of Dr Omar Davies, the ministry has overseen an ambitious regulatory overhaul and infrastructure improvement program within the framework of the national “Save 300 Lives” campaign