News

The entire infrastructure investment programme in the United Kingdom - Europe’s second biggest economy - is at serious risk as the country begins the process of leaving the European Union “During the next five years, GDP Growth in the UK will be half of what it was in the previous five years,” warned Alexander Jan, a director at UK-based infrastructure designer Arup. The value of the currency will continue to crash and “there will be a doubling in the cost of government borrowing”. This is bad news f

CONEXPO-CON/AGG has revealed its list of speakers for its Tech Talks forum. The speakers will focus on the growing opportunities for innovation in infrastructure projects and construction jobsites. The line-up includes some of the world’s leading innovators. These are: Wayne Rapp, director of manufacturing, Hyperloop One; D'Arcy Salzmann, senior director, strategy, Microsoft HoloLens and studio manager, Future Bureau, Microsoft; Captains Mark and Scott Kelly, former NASA astronauts; Scott Brusaw, co-founder

A series of key upgrade projects are planned for Austria’s highway network. The works are being planned by Austria’s highway operator ASFINAG, with plans for €1.2 billion in improvements to be carried out. Included in the programme of works will be upgrades to 30 tunnel sections. These tunnel upgrades will include boosting capacity as well as installing sophisticated safety technology, to meet the latest EU requirements.

A Chinese contractor will carry out a major highway project in Bolivia. The company, Sinohydro, will construct a new road section close to El Sillar and the work will form part of the highway connecting Santa Cruz with Cochabamba. The work for the 28km stretch of road is costing around US$450 million to carry out and the link is due to open to traffic in 2019. Work on this section of road was intended to commence earlier but was delayed due to a number of unexpected administrative issues. Financing for this

Plans are in hand in Serbia to build new highway links, including routes joining with neighbouring Montenegro. One of the key projects in focus in Serbia itself is the route joining Novi Sad with Zrenjanin, while another is for the route between Zrenjanin and Borca. Road maintenance works are also being planned. Meanwhile discussions have been held between Serbia and Montenegro over new highway connections to link the two countries. The aim is to build a new highway that will run from Belgrade, through Podg

Construction work is due to commence on Pakistan’s Hyderabad-Sukkur Motorway. The route will connect Sukkur and Hyderabad and will be 296km in length. This new stretch is costing US$1.53 billion and will form part of the Peshawar-Karachi Motorway (PKM). The plans call for the project to be carried out under the build-operate-transfer (BOT) model, although the details have yet to be finalised.

Optimism about the future of highways worldwide abounded at the inaugural European Road Infrastructure Conference (ERIC) in Leeds, UK. Around 500 delegates passed through the varied sessions during the three-day event at the Royal Armouries Museum in the northern English city of Leeds. They came away with many visions of what a motorway and road could look like. But what speakers at the event - co-organised by the Brussels-based European Union Road Federation (ERF) and the UK’s Road Safety Markings Associat

Optimism about the future of highways worldwide abounded at the inaugural European Road Infrastructure Conference (ERIC) in Leeds, UK Around 500 delegates passed through the varied sessions during the three-day event at the Royal Armouries Museum in the northern English city of Leeds. They came away with many visions of what a motorway and road could look like. But what speakers at the event - co-organised by the Brussels-based European Union Road Federation (ERF) and the UK’s Road Safety Markings Ass

Sri Lanka’s of Central Expressway project is well underway, with Phase II now being planned, Funding worth close to US$154.4 million is being delivered jointly by the People's Bank and the National Savings Bank in the shape of loans. The Section II of the project will measure nearly 40km in length and will run between Meerigama and Kurunegala. As much of this section of the route is on comparatively flat terrain, the work is expected to be less challenging from a technical viewpoint than other stretches pla

Three toll road projects are being planned in Indonesia. Financing for the projects is being provided through the Indonesia Infrastructure Guarantee. In all, the three projects are worth a total of US$2.17 billion. The toll roads are from Tebing Tinggi to Parapat, from Cileunyi-Sumedang to Dawuan and from Serang to Panimbang. The contracts are expected to be signed in March 2017.