News

In October 2012, an electric car rental service will be unveiled by Seoul City in South Korea to promote eco-friendly transportation. A total of 200 electric cars will be provided by the city for the car sharing service programme that will be unveiled in collaboration with two firms, with a target to ease traffic congestion, cut air pollution and save energy. The two companies that will join the programme are Korea Car Sharing and LG CNS, under a deal sealed with the city.

Foreign companies aiming to deliver lucrative infrastructure projects in Qatar will need to reconsider their tender process approach, according to experts assembled at the MEED Qatar Infrastructure Projects conference in London. Participating speakers said international contractors need to be more strategic about their business development practices in the Gulf state and act more transparently during the bid phase to improve tender conversion rates.

Bechtel and its joint venture partner, Enka, have completed a further 4.5km of the Kosovo motorway. The new section, which takes the total completed by Bechtel and Enka to 42.5km, opened on Friday 13 July and connects with the stretch of motorway delivered in November 2011 going from Morinë at the border with Albania to Suhareka. The growing Kosovo motorway now extends to the Dule interchange in Northern Kosovo. The latest stretch was built in less than a year, ahead of schedule and within budget.

Fiat Industrial (FI) plans to create a new holding company by merging with CNH, the construction and agricultural equipment manufacturer it already has a controlling 88% stake in. Under the FI plans the combined new holding company would be incorporated in the Netherlands, with a primary stock market listing in New York and a secondary listing in Europe.

An innovative large tunnel construction project is going ahead in Maastricht, the Netherlands. The 2.3km link forms part of a €683 million project, and is the first two-tier tunnel in the country. It will boost capacity and reduce congestion.

Two new bridges are planned that will span the Durance river in France. They will link the Bouches-du-Rhône and Vaucluse departments in South Eastern France. The new bridges are required as the two existing bridges are no longer sufficient to cope with traffic requirements. The two bridges are scheduled to be ready for traffic in early 2014, and this represents an investment of €52 million.

Bidding is now underway for a road project in Northern Ireland. Several joint venture groups are tendering for the €699 million A5 Western Transport Corridor project, which is being split into three sections.

Construction work is now underway on the last 50km of the new highway linking Lyon and Bordeaux in France. The owner of the highway, tolling firm Autoroutes du Sud de la France, is investing €1.3 billion in the work. The project includes building three tunnels and seven overpasses and the new highway is expected to be ready to carry traffic by the end of 2012.

Engine manufacturer DEUTZ is reconfiguring its organisational structures to deal with the effects of the global recession. Having launched its comprehensive MOVE action programme last year to secure its future and profitability, it now plans to take further steps to realign its structures. Following the reduction of the company's management board from four to three in March, the organisational level immediately below the board is being significantly streamlined. In future, 17 executives at this level will r

The tender process for the new €2.35 billion Forth Bridge is starting, with Transport Scotland expected to award the contract early in 2010. The project is due for completion in 2016, while the companies expected to bid for the project include Balfour Beatty, Laing O'Rourke, Morgan Est and Vinci. Calls are still being made by some for the government to reinstate the original plan, which called for a wider bridge but would have cost more than twice as much.

Bosnia and Croatia are looking to discuss a new highway construction project to link the two countries. The Adriatic-Ionic section of the Corridor VC motorway looks likely to pass through Bosnia. The plan is to build a total of 110km of roads, out of the planned 336km on the Corridor VC, by 2012.

Organisers say that despite the economic crisis the proportion of international exhibitors at CTT Moscow remained steady. The annual Russian construction machinery trade fair, organised by IMAG (the international arm of the Messe München Group which organises Bauma) in cooperation with Media Globe, attracted 580 exhibitors, and while this was less than in 2008, the international proportion among them remained steady with 170 companies from Western Europe taking part, including 70 German companies.

Media Globe and the Association of Equipment Manufacturers (AEM) have agreed to hold an expanded construction equipment exhibition in Russia beginning in 2010 at the Construction Equipment & Technologies (CTT) Exhibition in Moscow. AEM will join forces with CTT owner and organiser Media Globe by establishing a ConExpo Russia exhibit area in the CTT Exhibition (June 1-5) but it will not hold its separate ConExpo Russia exhibition, which was scheduled for September 2010. The agreement combines the resources o