Maintenance

In the Scottish highland Isle of Mull, TSL Contractors has made a significant purchase of Volvo Construction Equipment products only a year after buying its first Volvo excavator. The company, based in the town of Craignure, will use the machines for building roads as part of the business’s many hydroelectric contracts. New machinery includes 14tonne EC140D excavators, three 22tonne EC220E and one EC300 30tonne excavators, as well as two A25G articulated haulers. TSL managing director Andrew Knight sa

The D-Kerb, a new machine that cuts granite kerbs to 45° without removing them, has just completed several road projects in London. Local authorities and highways maintenance crew no longer have the cost or inconvenience of replacing them completely, said Julie White, managing director of the company D-Drill and also a co-inventor of the D-Kerb machine. During a highways project in Offord Road, North London, technicians from D-Drill carried out the 45° cut of kerbs around the 45m circumference of a central

Despite the proven importance of identifying metal targets and electrical lines before cutting into concrete, every day there are stories about mishaps that happen when the necessary reconnaissance is not done. In this article, a few firms that provide concrete scanning services weigh in on the critical importance of locating embedded and or buried obstructions by scanning for these features using ground penetrating radar (GPR). Also offered are tips for selecting the best GPR equipment and best practices f

A major road network improvement programme is planned for Ethiopia. For the 2015/2016 financial year, the country aims to build and maintain over 14,000km of roads. The programme is being managed by the Ethiopian Road Construction Corporation (ERCC). At present the firm is carrying out a series of road construction and maintenance works costing some US$313.5 million.

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

A novel system is now available that allows a smartphone to be used to measure road defects. Developed by Grimmer Software, the RoadBump Android application can be used to measure the roughness of a road. This tool can provide estimates of International Roughness Index (IRI) in metric or standard units, without requiring high-cost laser profilers.

Central Bedfordshire Council has appointed Ringway Jacobs to a Term Services Highways contract for the English county for seven years, starting April 1 next year. The councils said the contract will allow it to have “greater control and influence of what happens on its highways network”. The contract is based upon the standard contract documentation developed as part of the Highways Maintenance Efficiency Programme which is a sector-led initiative designed to maximise returns from investment in highwa

Yotta has developed sophisticated tools for winter highway maintenance. This technology can help local authorities to make better use of the Horizons visualised asset management software to assess potential winter maintenance works. The system provides a proactive approach that allows highways departments to address assets that are at risk from rain, snow and ice. The firm claims that this can help highways departments to deal with wet and icy conditions. Winter road damage is a great concern to Coun