News

A legal battle is underway in Japan regarding allegations of rigged tendering for road rebuilding projects. The allegations related to a series of road projects carried out to repair routes damaged by the earthquake and ensuing tsunami that occurred in March 2011. A series of road building firms had their offices raided by the Japan Fair Trade Commission and the Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office, which were looking for evidence of any wrongdoing. Three firms in particular are alleged to have been ins

The Indian Government has announced plans for major road projects in Bihar, Jharkhand and Tamil Nadu. A 222km road upgrade project will expand the National Highway 2 in Bihar and Jharkhand. The work is expected to cost around US$725.5 million and involves widening the route to six lanes, with three in either direction. The stretch of the NH – 2 planned for this upgrade will run from the Aurangabad Bihar/Jharkhand Border - Barwa Adda. Nine roads in the state of Tamil Nadu will be upgraded, with the work expe

In time for the bauma 2016 global construction equipment sector exhibition, a new online platform is being launched for the sector, called the “bauma Open Innovation”. The service is being launched by Messe München, the operator of the Neue Messe München exhibition centre in Munich, Germany, where bauma again is taking place, this year from April 11-17. bauma participants and other professionals interested in the sector can use this platform to solve their innovation-related challenges, by calling upon th

In the UK the Lanes Group is carrying out the contract to build specialist drainage for the New Wear Bridge in Sunderland. The Lanes Group will carry out this work for the joint venture partners building the new bridge link.

Users of Leica Cyclone, a 3D point cloud processing software, can now automatically import and align high-dynamic range (HDR) data from NCTech’s iSTAR camera database. The result is enhanced images delivered faster and easier, according to both companies. “It is also the accuracy to which these images fit the 3D point cloud data that is paramount. NCTech’s iSTAR camera produces high-quality HDR imaging at the accuracy everyone expects,” said Faheem Khan, vice president, business development for Leica Geosys

Bridges in seven European countries are part of a three-and-a-half-year programme to develop an inexpensive and low-power wireless structural health monitoring technique. Project SENSKIN, launched last summer in Athens, will run until December 2018. It is focussed on applying a skin-like sensor that offers spatial sensing of irregular surfaces, especially transportation bridges. Up to now, structural health monitoring has relied on a point-based system that requires a dense network of sensors over the bridg

Mexico is on track to complete works on 20 new motorways and 26 additional roads by the end of 2016. The Secretariat of Communications and Transport (SCT) has further plans to develop 52 new motorways and 90 roads under its infrastructure programme during the current administration, which concludes in 2018. These infrastructure projects are intended to turn Mexico into a global logistics hub. The Mexico-Toluca, Mexico-Cuernavaca and Mexico-Puebla motorways are amongst the projects due to see major progress

Messe München is launching a new service for the off-highway equipment industry at bauma 2016, taking place from April 11th-April 19th at Munich’s exhibition centre. Called the bauma Open Innovation online platform this will allow industry professionals interested to solve innovation-related challenges. The platform will be able to call upon the expertise of Messe München’s cross-disciplinary network of contacts.

Plans are being drawn up for a major programme of road paving work in Brazil’s mato Grosso State. The plans are being made the by the state authorities and involve paving around 10,000km of roads by 2018. The work is expected to cost in the region of US$2.48 billion. Because of the scale of the work, this exceeds state funds. Some 530km of roads in the state were paved in 2015, with a plan to pave 930km in 2016. The financing sources for the paving works have yet to be finalised. In addition a number of o

A major landmark bridge in Bahrain will be designed by Dar Al-Handasah Consultants (Shair and Partners). The contract was awarded to design the Dilmunia Gateway Bridge to Dilmunia Island by Ithmaar Development Company (IDC). The new structure will be designed to a high standard to meet traffic as well as aesthetic requirements. The new link will connect with the US$1.6 billion artificial island project off Muharraq.