News

The joint organisers of the Road Engineering Association of Asia & Australasia (REAAA) Conference, which will be held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, from 26 to 28 March 2013, have announced that registration is now open on the event website - www.14reaaaconf2013.com. The theme of the event is The Road Factor in Economic Transformation, the focus of which will be on the development and maintenance of an efficient road infrastructure to meet the demands for sustainable economic growth in developing countries.

A series of controls to enforce drink driving and drug driving regulations across Europe saw police conduct more than 900,000 breath tests in a seven-day period, of which nearly 18,000 were positive. Motorists were also checked for drugs in the operation, organised by the European Traffic Police Network (TISPOL), between 4 and 10 June. In total, 928,863 drivers were controlled. There were 17,970 alcohol offences and 2,773 drug offences detected.

Nearly 3,000 cars, trucks and buses equipped with connected Wi-Fi technology to enable vehicles and infrastructure to ‘talk’ to each other in real time to help avoid crashes and improve traffic flow, began traversing Ann Arbor's streets yesterday as part of a year-long safety pilot project by the US Department of Transportation. Ray LaHood, US Transportation Secretary, joined elected officials and industry and community leaders on the University of Michigan campus to launch the second phase of the Safety Pi

German light and compact equipment manufacturer, Wacker Neuson, saw its second-quarter 2012 profit fall 38% to €13.8 million, down from €22.5 million in Q2 2011. The Munich-based firm’s quarterly earnings per share dropped 37.5% to 0.20 euros from last year's 0.32 euros. On a more positive note the company’s revenue in Q2 2012 quarter rose 6.5% percent to €284.2 million, from €266.9 million euros in the prior-year quarter.

The tremendous growth in the amount of available weather and road condition information—including devices that gather weather information, models and forecasting tools for predicting weather conditions, and electronic devices used by travellers — has led the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) to develop effective and specific guidelines for communicating road weather information in a way that is consistent with what travellers need, want, and will use when making travel decisions.

The Sanef Group has made a healthy offer to CS for the acquisition of its intelligent transportation system (ITS) operations. The deal relates specifically to the ITS Business Unit, which employs approximately 220 people and recorded a revenue of € 31.4 million in 2011. Sanef is a global service road infrastructure provider, focussing on mobility.

KPI-JCI & Astec Mobile Screens took part in the recent M&T Expo in São Paulo, Brazil as part of a newly-established joint venture called Astec Agregados E Mineracao do Brasil between its parent corporation, Astec Industries, and MDE, a KPI-JCI & Astec Mobile Screens authorised dealership in Brazil. The company showcased its GT200DF, a trackmounted cone plant.

Xylem has opened a new sales and service office in Panama to provide greater customer support to the developing Latin American market. The water technology company, focused on addressing the world’s most challenging water issues, says the expansion reflects its commitment to expansion within emerging markets. The company’s Flygt and Godwin pumps are already being used for the Panama Canal expansion project for dredging and construction works.

A leading road safety campaigner has urged the UK government to show “much greater leadership” on the issue after new Department for Transport (DfT) figures revealed a rise in pedestrians, cyclists, and motorcyclists killed or seriously injured on Britain’s roads. The number of cyclists killed or seriously injured (KSI) on UK roads between April 1 and June 30, 2012 rose 13% to 700, compared to 621 over the same three months of 2011.

Lithuanian forwarding company Finejas, one of the biggest in the Baltic area, is receiving the first of the 100 ordered Kögel Cargo platform trailers via Kögel’s general importer for Lithuania, UAB Transuore. Kögel says the Cargo offers low tare weight, large available volume and a high vertical load.

Yenisey River at US$394.7 million. The Krasnoyarsk-based Trasmost offered a bid of $450.6 million for the work while another Krasnoyarsk-based firm Sibiryak submitted a tender of $453.9 million for the bridge. This will be the fourth road bridge spanning the Yenisey River in Krasnoyarsk. All three companies said that the work will take 40 months to complete.

Italian company Barin has supplied bridge inspection equipment in China. The model ABC 60/l belongs to the automatic bridge control range and the deal was handled by Barin’s distributor company in Hong Kong, New Motion. The skid unit machine, mounted on a two-axle Nissan truck chassis, was shipped in a container in pieces and then reassembled locally. The unit, made of aluminium alloy, is an underbridge platform-type machine with a maximum undebridge working length of 6m, and has a total payload of 300kg.

A new range of Doosan wheeled loaders has been launched for markets in the Middle East and Africa region. Building on the design of the previous Mega range, the new Doosan DL250A, DL300A and DL420A wheeled loaders offer several improvements.