News

Interest is strong in the project to build and operate La Raza-Indios Verdes-Santa Clara road concession in Mexico. Seven firms have expressed interest in the La Raza-Indios Verdes-Santa Clara road concession. Caabsa, Constructora Garza Ponce, Ideal, Idinsa, OHL Mexico, Omega and Pinfra and are all in the running for the project at present. The winner of the tender process for the 10km route will be announced on 21st April 2016. The road will be built under the public-private partnership model and the conce

The Haulotte Group reports that a healthy business environment has seen it generate good sales and profit levels. The firm generated consolidated sales of €134.5 million in the fourth quarter of 2015 compared with €92.7 million for the same period in 2014. This represented an increase of 45%. Consolidated sales for the whole of 2015 hit €445.3 million compared with €412.6 million in 2014, an increase of 8%. The group said it benefited from favourable exchange rates in 2015 and saw its performance driven b

The Russian government said it intends to spend nearly US$216 million building the Kirov western bypass. Construction of the 21.5km highway will start in 2017 at a bridge across the Vyatka River to the Kirov-Sovetsk-Yaransk interchange. Three interchanges and seven overpasses will also be built. The project will be carried out under the public-private partnership scheme.

The latest official figures from Malaysia show a worrying increase in the country’s road crash rate. The Malaysian Institute of Road Safety Research (MIROS) shows that the number of reported road crashes increased by 2.74% to 489,606 in 2015, compared with 476,196 for 2014. Meanwhile there were 6,706 road fatalities in 2015. According to MIROS, 19.4% of these road crashes were as a result of vehicle defects or poor road conditions, with 80.6% caused by human error.

Austria’s Infrastructure Ministry is setting out an ambitious programme of transport infrastructure development. Plans have been announced for €25 billion worth of infrastructure improvements over the next five years. This will include improvements to road and rail, as well as broadband services.

Britain’s only toll road, the motorway M6 Toll, is up for sale by its owners, a consortium of banks that hope to recover some of the €2.45 billion of debt. The 27 owners of M6 Toll, including Crédit Agricole, Commerzbank and Banco Espirito Santo, took over the 43km pay-as-you-go toll road from infrastructure group Macquarie in December 2013 after a debt restructuring. Midland Expressway Limited (MEL), part of Macquarie Atlas Roads, continues to operate the six-lane motorway around the English city of

Tunisia’s road network looks set to expand now that new funding has been secured. The Tunisian Assembly of the Representatives of the People has agreed two loans from the African Development Bank (ADB) worth a total of nearly US$208 million. These loans are to be repaid over 20 years and will help fund road infrastructure developments for the 2016-2020 period. The work will focus on upgrading classified roads. This includes renovating 719km of roads, building 23 bridges and constructing a 7.3km-long bypass

Plans are moving forward for the new bridge structure connecting Thailand with neighbouring Laos. The Mekong Friendship Bridge will be 1.35km long and is expected to cost US$84.3 million to construct. The building work on the bridge will commence in 2019, with the necessary surveying work as well as the design now close to completion.

An Italian-Iranian road study agreement has now been signed. The Italian state-controlled road concession firm ANAS has a cooperation agreement with Iran's Construction and Development of Transport Infrastructures Company (CDTIC). ANAS International Enterprise (AIE) will carry out the study for the completion of the 1,500km north-south corridor, which runs between the port of Bandar-E-Imam on the Persian Gulf up to the northern border with Azerbaijan through the city of Tabriz. The aim of the study is to co

Uzbekistan will take out a US$405 million loan with the Asian Development Bank in the second half of this year for completion of a motorway from Central Asia to China. ADB will provide three loan in three tranches. Last autumn, Uzbekistan said it will target of 2,700km of new highways by 2019 at a cost of around $590 million. Around 2,280km will have a bituminous concrete surface and 418km will be a concrete surface. Uzbekistan has been setting out a major plan for road repairing, rebuilding and up

Delays look likely for Indonesia’s massive toll-road development programme. Funding shortages for the necessary land acquisitions will hold back commencement of highway construction activity. In all over US$18.1 billion has been set aside by the Public Works and Public Housing Ministry for the necessary land purchases. But this sum is insufficient for the massive land areas required. The ambitious programme of works has called for the construction of 1,000km of tolled highways by 2019. Additional funding wi