Features

Road safety is a key issue for sustainable development targets. During the Rio+20 Conference in 2012, it was agreed by member States to launch a process to develop a set of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), to build on the Millennium Development Goals and converge with the post-2015 development agenda. Over the past six months, IRF Geneva has undertaken a sustained campaign to ensure that road safety is included in the SDGs. As part of this, Kiran K Kapila, chairman, IRF Geneva, has reached out, amon

During his recent radio programme “Mann Ki Baat,” Narendra Modi, The Prime Minister of India, expressed concern regarding the road safety situation on Indian roads and the number of lives being lost as a result of traffic accidents. Modi said, “The statistics on road accidents in our country are shocking. There is an accident every minute. And due to road accidents there is a death every four minutes." He further noted that lives can be saved by taking the injured to hospital within the first hour, also kno

Commuter traffic in the Taipei Metropolitan Area is a major concern for the city’s town planners. In 2009, a decision was reached to widen National Freeway No. 1 between Wugu and Yangmei on a 42km section of freeway on the northern part of town. The lane-widening project saw the construction of two new viaducts built along each side of the freeway. From the onset, the project presented tremendous challenges owing to various factors, including limited space for construction; passing through a geologically

As a strong believer in continuing education, the IRF has long provided road and transportation professionals worldwide with educational and professional development opportunities and resources. This has been delivered through a global training curriculum aimed at providing technical expertise in classroom and practical settings where attendees can learn from and have direct access to seasoned professionals. Each course not only provides the most relevant, up-to-date information and best practices and solut

Sand and gravel productions operations in Bavaria are benefiting from new equipment that is helping boost output. Having recently commissioned a Sennebogen 640 HD crawler crane, Hans Wolf is using its machine equipped with a dragline bucket for gravel extraction. The machine was supplied from Sennebogen’s plant, also in Straubing, and was purchased following a successful trial at the site. The Hans Wolf group is based in Straubing and has a network of gravel plants and transport companies in Lower Bavari

The 13th Beijing International Construction Machinery Exhibition & Seminar (BICES) will be the largest exhibition for construction machinery in Asia during 2015. This major event is being held from September 22nd to 25th, 2015 at the New Beijing International Exhibition Centre (NBIEC) for the first time. This new venue is the most advanced exhibition center in Beijing and the event has switched to the site in response to demands from both exhibitors and visitors. The switch to the NBIEC marks another milest

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.

Heavy-duty quarry work is the order of the day for new Doosan DX420LC-3 and DX340LC-3 crawler excavators, together with two new DL550-3 and three new DL420-3 wheel loaders. Wentvalley Aggregates & Recycling in county Yorkshire in the UK purchased the machines for its Wentbridge site where they work alongside other generation machines, the Doosan DL450 wheel loader and Doosan DX225LC excavator. The quarry supplies limestone products, including single-size and all primary blended products from crusher runs

Two of the largest cranes in Switzerland recently were called upon to lift an 884tonne, 162m-long connecting bridge between two buildings at the Coop distribution centre in Schafisheim. “The individual bridge components had enormous gross weights of up to 275tonnes and required us to use working radii of up to 29m,” said Andre Huber, project manager at Toggenburger, the company that took on the task. To get the job done, Toggenburger rolled out its biggest machinery which also happen to be the two lar

Limited highways maintenance budgets can deliver more with a planned asset management approach - *Will Baron. In recent years, a growing number of local and highways authorities have found themselves trapped in a vicious cycle of reactive road repairs. Several bad winters, floods and years of under-investment have taken their toll on road networks. This has led to political and public pressure to patch up potholes and make emergency repairs, ultimately diverting funds away from planned highways maintenance.

Utility machines are designed to be highly versatile and able to handle a wide range of duties but using attachments can further broaden the array of capabilities - Mike Woof writes The utility equipment market is a diverse sector of the construction machinery business. These versatile machines can be used in a vast array of duties and are very popular in the rental equipment market. Skid steer loaders, compact tracked loaders, compact wheeled loaders, mini excavators, zero tailswing excavators, wheeled