News

A new road and interchange upgrade project is planned for the US state of Massachusetts. The deal is worth US$1.2 billion and involves upgrades to the Massachusetts Turnpike in Allston. An existing raised section of the route will be replaced with a former rail marshalling yard being used for the new roadway. Construction is expected to commence in 2020 and will take until 2025 to be completed.

Vietnam’s North-South Expressway project will boost transport for both goods and passengers. This is the finding of a report from Vietnam's Transport Ministry. According to the report, demand to move goods along the route will climb to 62.3 million tonnes/year by 2020. Meanwhile the report says that the route will handle up to 45.4 million passengers/year by 2020. Because of its importance to the Vietnamese economy, the Ministry of Transport is highlighting that the country cannot allow the project to suff

The project to build the Chacao Bridge in Chile will now be managed fully by South Korean Contractor Hyundai. The firm formed a consortium, Consorcio Puente Chacao, with Brazilian contractor OAS to build the bridge. However OAS later hit financial issues, so Hyundai has now assumed full control of the project. The new bridge will connect the mainland with Chiloe Island and will be designed to cope with potentially extreme conditions. The area has suffered some of the most powerful earthquakes ever recorded

Bauer, equipment maker for ground investigation work, reports third quarter 2017 total group revenue up 22% on the previous year to just over €1,398 million. The German company said sales revenues increased by 27.5% to €1,265.6 million. However, the order backlog was €977.3 million that, while still high, was down from €1,019.0 million the previous year. This was due to a high double-digit million order backlog taken off the books after the sale of shares in a real estate company at the end of 2016.

The IRF Washington office is calling for presentations for its Safer By Design event. The AFB20(2) Roadside Safety Design Subcommittee on International Research Activities will be conducting its Annual Meeting during TRB week January 7th-11th 2018. The featured topic for this year’s meeting will be Non-Hardware Roadside Safety Solutions. The topics in focus are likely to include rumble strips, high friction surface technologies, road markers, vertical signage, horizontal signage and autonomous vehicles.

A major highway project is now underway in China. Construction work has commenced for the 169km Huzhou stretch of the Hangzhou City Highway. This section of the new route will feature 19 interchanges as well as four service area. In all the work is expected to cost US$6.55 billion to construct.

One of Florida’s Interstate stretches has the highest rate of road crashes in the US, according to a newly available report. Interstate 4 runs through Tampa, Orlando and Daytona Beach and has been identified as having the highest ratio of road fatalities to distance for any road section in the US. The report was compiled by Teletrac Navman and highlights the section that runs past Orlando as being particularly dangerous. According to the report, Interstate 4 has 0.78 deaths/km (1.25/mile) putting it into

Construction work is commencing shortly for Moscow’s Central Ring Road (CRR) project. The new route should be ready for traffic in 2019-2020. The contract for the stretch of the route lying between the M4 Don and the M7 Volga highway is being awarded. In all the CRR will measure 530km long and is expected to cost US$5.43 billion to construct.