News

Contractor STRABAG is bullish and report strong economic performance for its latest financial results. The firm’s output volume after first nine months of 2015 hit nearly €10.3 billion, an increase of 6% over the same period for 2.14. Meanwhile there was strong growth in earnings with the firm’s EBITDA rising to €403.79 million, and EBIT to €115.81 million. The order backlog was down 11% to €13.8 billion however. For the whole of 2015, the outlook is healthy.

Colombia will accept bids later this month for two major projects under the ongoing 4G strategic plan for highways, according to vice-president German Vargas Lleras, Contracts details for construction of the Bucaramanga-Pamplona and Pamplona-Cucuta motorways have been published on the website of the National Infrastructure Agency, ANI.

Vietnam is showing a major improvement in road safety, with a reduction in crashes. According to the National Committee on Traffic Safety of Vietnam, the number of crashes reported in the country during the last 12 months dropped by 51% compared to the data for 2011. The number of injury cases caused by road crashes decreased by 60%, while that of deaths declined by 24%. The committee attributed the decrease in crashes to factors including tougher law enforcement and the introduction of new traffic regulati

A novel move in India by the government will see waste materials being used in road construction. The new legislation requires plastic waste to be used in asphalt by road construction firms. The aim of this new legislation is to overcome the problem of plastic waste disposal in India’s major urban areas. Road construction firms will be required to incorporate waste plastic within hot mix when building bitumen roads within 50km of any city with a population of 500,000 or more. The contractor is now required

Balfour Beatty has been awarded a €147.72 million (£104 million) road scheme by Norfolk County Council to complete works on the Norwich Northern Distributor Road (NNDR). The new road will serve Broadland, Norfolk, and improve access to North Norfolk and Norwich International Airport, with better links to Great Yarmouth and the south of the region. It will also bring relief on congested and unsuitable roads around the north and east of Norwich and improve capacity for future growth in jobs and housing.

Loans from Japan to Cambodia will help finance work on a key highway upgrade. The loan package totals US$150 million and will be used for the project to upgrade Cambodia’s National Road No 5. This major route runs from Poipet city, through Banteay Meanchey to Phnom Penh. The loan was announced by HE Shinzo Abe, Japan’s prime minister in a meeting with Samdech Akka Moha Sena Padei Techo Hun Sen, the prime minister of Cambodia. The meeting was held at the recent 27th ASEAN Summit in Malaysia.

Stretches of a major new highway project in Slovakia are opening for traffic. Two sections of the D1 highway are opening by the end of 2015. Slovakian National Motorway Company has said that the second section of the 9.5km D1 highway stretch from Janovce-Jablonov, near the town of Levoca, will open by the end of 2015. The other section set to open will be the D1 stretch from Fricovce – Svinia and located near Presov. During 2015 NDS planned to open five new motorway stretches, of which three are already in

Proposals are expected for widening work to two major highways in Paraguay. In all seven consortia look likely to submit their proposals for the PPP widening project for Route 2 and Route 7. The Directorate of Strategic Projects (DIPE) of Paraguay's Ministry of Public Works and Communications (MOPC) has reported that seven of the eleven pre-qualified firms have shown string interest in the work. The project is due for completion after 2019 and will cost close to $400 million. Bidding for the project will no

A heart-stopping moment when a motorcyclist stopped at a busy intersection see what she thought was a leaf blowing around on the road, but was actually a tiny kitten. Click here to watch as her helmet cam records the event, including first sight of the little thing on the asphalt where the animal was only a meter or so away from traffic rushing through the intersection. A pickup just brushes by the furry ball only seconds before the motorcyclist was able to put the bike on its side stand, warn traffic awa

Drink drive enforcement still has issues in Europe, according to Pan-European police body TISPOL. It is estimated that 230 (14%) of the 1,713 road deaths in the UK are due to drinking and driving. Meanwhile drink driving is the cause of around 5,000 road deaths in Europe. For England, Wales and Northern Ireland the limit for driving is still 80mg (0.8) of alcohol/100ml of blood. Scotland reduced its limit to 50mg (0.5) of alcohol/100ml of blood in December 2014, bringing it into line with most other Europea

Major plans are in hand in Thailand for transport infrastructure development. The country’s Ministry of Transport is revising its construction plans for a series of key transport infrastructure projects at present. Several selected plans will then be presented to the cabinet in mid-December 2015. A total of five public-private partnership (PPP) ventures are among projects that will be re-submitted to the cabinet for approval. Two of these PPP projects are highways that will cost an estimated US$3.9 billion.