Features

Maintenance of roads in historic districts is a challenge for communities around the world. The sanctity of the surroundings limits the amount of re-engineering and widening that can be considered. Improvement options typically are limited to repairs. Yet repairs also have an impact. The historic areas usually attract tourists and their crucial economic contributions. If the street repairs create too much of an inconvenience, tourists are likely to avoid the area and a negative economic impact and a loss of

Productivity and profitability mean more than how many metres per minute your cold planer mills. In today’s world, precision is every bit as important as pace. Precision eliminates costly rework. It ensures crews don’t remove excess materials, and incur the associated costs in fuel, hauling and machine life. Precision also impacts the entire life—and cost—of a project by creating the proper foundation on which all subsequent work occurs. Cat® Grade and Slope for cold planers helps deliver that precision. Am

Copenhagen, Denmark, has long been known as one of the world’s leading cities for cycling. In some areas of the city, the modal share of bikes has reached a level of as much as 50 %. And on some of the most frequently used bike paths the average daily number of cyclists is close to 30,000. As these numbers continue to rise, new ways of planning and implementing cycling infrastructure are needed. Increasingly, Danish traffic planners are turning to technology as a tool for planning cycling infrastructure. I

Designing structures and pavements to accommodate warmer weather and more extreme temperatures On October 22nd, IRF held a notable workshop on environmental protection and the impacts of climate change in Cordoba, Argentina, in conjunction with the XVI Argentine Congress of Road Administration and Traffic. The workshop addressed a topic of key concern to transportation planning and design professionals around the world. The discussion was animated by guest panellists Professor Ram M Pendyala and Gordon Rex

The European Union provide €1.4 million from the TEN-T Programme a project to maximise road and tunnel safety on the planned Stockholm bypass in Sweden. The project forms part of the Nordic Triangle railway/road axis (TEN-T Priority Project 12), will help ensure safety on the new route. The project was selected for funding under the 2011 TEN-T Annual Call. The work will cover important safety and security studies and tests for the Stockholm bypass, which will feature 18km of tunnels. These studies aim to pr

The emergence of Brazil as a major economic force and its need to improve infrastructure is proving a magnet for investment. Patrick Smith reports. Brazil is now the sixth biggest economy in the world according to its Finance Minister Guido Mantega. The largest country in South America with a population of 190 million and one of the BRICS, (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Brazil’s economy grew 2.7% in 2011 and is now worth $2.5 trillion, having overtaken the UK. With big oil and gas reserves sti

Major bridge maintenance and replacement projects across the world are extending the life of many impressive historic landmarks as Guy Woodford reports The Tamar Bridge, part of the main A38 trunk road linking Saltash in Cornwall with Plymouth in Devon, south west England, marked its 50th anniversary with a steel deck resurfacing project involving Stirling Lloyd's Eliminator bridge deck waterproofing system. Jointly owned by Plymouth City Council and Cornwall Council, the Tamar has a suspended length of 642

Leading European tolling solution companies are involved in a number of innovative tolling projects across the continent and further afield. Guy Woodford looks at some of the latest Siemens Mobility & Logistics (SML) has received orders from Eurotoll and Total, two of France’s largest electronic toll on-board unit issuers, to supply technology for the new French toll collection system. The equipment comprises on-board units for the vehicles as well as the electronic detection system. The SML orders’, worth