News

Video detection specialist Traficon has been awarded a contract to provide video image processors for traffic monitoring inside the Södra Länken and Norra Länken tunnels in Stockholm, Sweden. The company will provide some 763 of its VIP-T modules, which have been designed for automatic incident detection and traffic data analysis.

A fresh set of problems has hit the long planned Messina Straits Bridge in Italy.

Reductions in road building budgets are being implemented in various departments in France, in a bid to cut overall spending. In 2009 some €4.5 billion was spent on the road budget, compared with €3.9 billion planned for 2012. Various local authorities were able to make small cuts in roads budgets until now. However the budget reductions are now becoming more direct as local authorities are seeing their resources fall and social costs rise.

Germany’s Government intends to boost transportation infrastructure spending, with the majority of funds going towards roads. An increase of €1 billion will be targeted at transport with some 60% of that budget being used for improvements to the country’s road network. In contracts some 30% will be for port, canal and general shipping infrastructure with a mere 10% for rail investment. The German Government has also granted approval for work to the next stretch of the A44 autobahn. The new 7km link will run

Bosnia’s highway company Autoceste Federacije BiH will invest €500 million in the construction of the Corridor Vc road. The European Investment Bank (EIB) will provide a loan of €166 million to part finance the project. The plans call for the construction of the 56km highway as well as an additional 10km of the Sarajevo ringroad. The cost of the project is three times higher than any other that the country has so far planned. Autoceste Federacije BiH has said that it will finance land expropriation.

The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) is providing major funding in Albania’s road network. A loan worth €53 million will help pay for the construction of the new Fier and Vlore bypasses. This loan will aid further development of the Albanian road network and boosting economic integration in the country by co-financing the construction of the two bypass roads, located in south-western Albania. The EBRD loan is structured in two tranches and will be used by the Albanian Road Authority t

A Chinese construction firm has managed to win a series of key highway contracts in China as well as overseas. The China Railways Group has contracts worth a total of US$1.58 billion in total for infrastructure projects.

The Brazilian authorities are looking to renegotiate contracts for a series of state road concessions that were auctioned up to 15 years ago. The intention is to improve the roads while cutting the rate of return for the concession holders, with controls on tariff rates to restrict price increases for users.

A joint venture comprising Impregilo and Astaldi is to handle a key road upgrade contract in Italy. The deal is worth some €791 million and will be carried out over a period of 92 months.

Following its December Forum on ITS for Urban Mobility, Ertico ITS Europe has published a 20-page report of the presentations from the high level speakers and participants from public authorities and industry given during the in-depth examination of the role and opportunities for ITS in urban mobility.

Mexico’s president Felipe Calderon has inaugurated the new Baluarte Bridge, which crosses the Baluarte River in the Sierra Madre mountain range in the north of the country. This 1.12km long bridge is 403m high at its central point over the steeply sloping ravine it spans, making it the highest cable-stayed structure in the world.

Serbia has managed to reduce the cost of building the Corridor 10 highway by €80 million. These funds will instead be used to pay for upgrades and improvements needed for the second section of the highway project, close to Neradovci. So far some 180km of the Corridor 10 highway has been built over a 40 month time frame. A further 150km of the highway has still to be built. Work on the Corridor 10 motorway is also being financed by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the state budget.