Features

Winners of the 2015 Global Road Achievement Awards Announced This year the IRF honoured 12 projects from around the world, each leading the way in innovation across major road and highway disciplines. The selection was made by an international panel of senior road development specialists. "Much of the transport sector's accomplishments are unnoticed by the hundreds of millions of people who benefit so greatly from the availability of safe, smart and interconnected road networks," said IRF chairman Abd

The International Road Federation (IRF) Geneva is reaching out to the next generation of leaders and professionals by launching the IRF Young Professionals Programme (IRF-YPP) The IRF YPP provides young professionals involved with the road and mobility sectors a platform for communicating with their peers, exchanging ideas, getting involved and contributing new ideas to the road sector, and engaging with the IRF. The mission of the IRF-YPP is to present young professionals with opportunities for their

Telematics is giving contractors a greater oversight of the location and performance of their machinery In simple terms, telematics is any integrated use of telecommunications and ICT (information and communications technology). It concerns the sending, receiving and storing of information via telecommunication devices. Typically, this is in conjunction with machine or device control and includes use of global positioning systems, or GPS.

According to Atlas Copco Dynapac, its new CT3000 tamping compactor offers rapid and efficient operation. The machine has been designed to efficiently achieve specified densities on cohesive and semi-cohesive soils. With an operating weight of 22.5tonnes and an average production capacity of 820.7m3/h, the Dynapac CT3000 is ideal on projects such as highways and airport runways, where large-volume earthmoving is required. Power comes from a 194kW Cummins turbo-diesel engine, which drives through an au

In Iowa, the Simex CT 2.8 vibrating compactor wheel is playing an important role in building a subsurface, road drainage system The topsoil of Iowa is famous for its fertility, a characteristic that explains the high agricultural productivity of this state located in the American Midwest. However, the composition of the soil lends itself poorly to the dispersal of rainwater, as its fine granulometry and low level of permeability (12.7cm/hour according to the American Association of State Highway and Tran

Innovations in asphalt plant technology will help boost the use of recycled asphalt. Mike Woof writes. An Ammann asphalt plant located in Australia has been successful in using a high percentage of recycled feed materials. The Australian producer Downer recently created and laid an asphalt mix consisting of 99% recycled materials, including feed from somewhat unusual sources. The feed included toner from printer cartridges, tyres and glass and this is thought to be the first time a mix has been produced usi

Brazil's improved Mercosur route will boost capacity and cut travel time - Mauro Nogarin writes. The Régis Bittencourt Highway is one of the main access routes of the Mercosur traffic. It has a length of 400km and connects the main cities of São Paulo and Curitiba, which allows for products to enter from the southeast toward the rest of the southern part of Brazil and later transit to Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay. Products also flow into Brazil from Mercosur through this major highway. The cost of the hi

A quarrying operation in India is seeing the benefit of new machines for its fleet Indian quarry firm Pearl Mineral and mines, extracts some 7,200m3 of granite/year from its two granite quarries at Chimakurthy and Andhra Pradesh. Pearl Mineral and Mines is one of the top producers and exporters of Indian granite, with more than half of its produce sold overseas. Located on India’s south-eastern coast, the company produces stone, ranging from giant blocks to tiny chips. The Green Pearl granite quarry

Boosting quarrying efficiency by improving drilling and blasting operations. Drilling and blasting operations are crucial for quarry efficiency and Sandvik recently held a Russian Quarry seminar focussing on this in a bid to boost effectiveness for a number of key clients. Sandvik Construction Russia worked with official distributor Quarry-Service to run the Quarry Seminar, this year located in Yekaterinburg. The event concentrated on drilling and blasting and featured the expertise and knowledge of Arne L