Features

The IRF presented 12 Global Road Achievement Awards (GRAA), the 2008 Student Essay Competition winner, and three Lifetime Distinguished Service Awards at its Annual Awards Banquet at The Mayflower Hotel, Washington DC on 12 January.

Russian construction firm Kamdorstroy has carried out a successful demonstration of recycling techniques to over 60 highway officials, academics and contractors from all over the CIS states. The demonstration was carried out in co-operation with the Russian Federal Highway and Tatarstan Highway authorities and involved milling, recycling and overlaying a road with hot mix asphalt. The work was carried out on a 7.5m wide roadway with 3.8m wide lanes (with an overlap) using machinery and techniques new to Rus

Improved surface quality and improved machine design are key trends in the asphalt paving sector, Mike Woof reports There is a big difference in asphalt paving techniques in North America and Europe. In North America, the need to construct long stretches of highway quickly resulted in wide pavers offering high throughput capacity, with compaction equipment then being used to achieve the required density of the various courses. In Europe's highway construction projects, distances tend to be shorter and contr

Managing utility works effectively is important, given that digging up roads and then patching them can dramatically cut the life of a road surface. New software tools make this process easier to manage effectively and Bentley Systems is extending its Expert Designer V8i package to include water, gas, and communications infrastructure, in addition to electric utilities. This allows utility firms and engineering contractors using Expert Designer V8i to boost the efficiency of utility network design projects.

IRF releases World Road Statistics (WRS), containing road data covering the period 2002-2007. The WRS 2009 includes high quality road and transport statistics for more than 185 countries, which have been compiled from a wide range of national, international and intergovernmental sources

Arrangements are proceeding full-speed ahead for what promises to be an exceptional IRF World Meeting from 25-28 May in Lisbon, Portugal. An outstanding technical programme has been finalised, the last remaining exhibition stands are being snapped up and an exhilarating social programme is in place.

A joint development project between Delcan Corporation and Intelligent Devices Incorporated (IDI) has resulted in the sophisticated Intelligent NETworks product. This is an integrated product that combines the IDI Intelligent Control NTCIP system with the Delcan advanced transportation applications of NETworks. The system can be linked to dynamic message signs (DMS), CCTV and vehicle detector stations (VDS), traffic intersections, as well as environment road weather sensor stations.

Several key highway construction innovations will be unveiled at the Intermat show

Milling techniques remain one of the most widely used recycling methods

The preparation of the new EU Road Safety Policy for the next decade will take place during Spain's presidency of the EU. Patrick Smith reports. An the past 10 years, half a million people have been killed on European Union roads, with road crashes costing an annual €160 billion or 2% the EU's GDP.