News

A new bridge is planned for St Petersburg. The link will span the Neva River and will form part of the Western High-Speed Radius route. The project is expected to cost US$2.26 billion. The authorities in St Petersburg are currently looking for potential investors in the project as well as an engineering firm able to carry out the detailed planning work necessary.

Germany has a massive backlog of works required on its high speed road network. A report by Germany’s institute for economic research (DIW) says that the backlog of work for the transportation network corresponds will cost in the region of €80 billion to €100 billion to complete. According to the DIW report, around 50% of Autobahn bridges and 20% of Autobahn routes are in a critical state. In addition, German railway company Deutsche Bahn (DB) estimates that there are around 1,400 railway bridges that need

At their joint summit, held in Brussels, Belgium, the presidents of CECE (Committee of European Construction Equipment) and CEMA (European Agricultural Machinery Association) presented to EU institutions a manifesto consisting of five priority actions for a successful digital transformation of the construction and the agricultural machinery industries.

A major road project in Rwanda has been completed on schedule by contractor STRABAG. The rebuilt road’s route runs 78km and connects capital Kigali with the border town of Gatuna. STRABAG won the contract to reconstruct the road in July 2011. The construction phase commences in January 2012 and took 44 months to complete. The official opening took place in the presence of Rwanda’s Minister of Infrastructure James Musoni and Neven Mimica, the European Union Commissioner for International Cooperation and Deve

Software specialist Bentley Systems has announced the nominees for its ccconstruction software innovation awards, being held in the UK in November 2015. The project finalists for the 2015 Be Inspired Awards highlight Bentley users advancing infrastructure design, construction, and operations throughout the world. Ten independent jury panels selected the 54 finalists from more than 360 nominations submitted by organisations in 55 countries.

German firm Sennebogen is expanding its manufacturing facilities at its headquarters in Straubing in Bavaria. The firm is extending its production and warehouse areas at the site by around 35,000m². The company is also building a new 6,700m² production shop that will be used for the assembly and painting of large components and for finishing work and quality control. With this investment into the Straubing site located around one hour’s drive to the north of Munich, the company is preparing itself for futur

A report by the United Kingdom’s Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety and the Royal Automobile Club (RAC) Foundation found that 1,775 people were killed and 22,807 hurt on British roads last year. The increase has been attributed to the scrapping of casualty reduction targets for local councils and a cut in funding for road infrastructure safety improvements. The report also cited in-car technology, such as satellite navigation systems – sat-navs - and infotainment systems, as a factor

Work is starting on the approach viaducts for the new Mersey Gateway Bridge in the UK. The project is using longest bridge-building machine in Europe, which was named during a ceremony to mark the latest key stage the Mersey Gateway Project. Most machines of this kind can only build bridge spans of up to 60m. However, the MSS for the Mersey Gateway Bridge was specially made so it is able to cast spans of up to 70m.

More than 30 nominated companies and individual will be running for the International Tunnelling and Underground Space Association’s (ITA) Awards. The awards, to be held in Hagerbach, Switzerland on November 19, consist of nine categories, from ‘Major Project of the Year’ to the ‘Innovation of the year’. Nominee selection was difficult because of the high number of quality applicants – 110 – and impressive projects – 105 – that the judges had to examine. Finally, three to eight nominees were selected

There was strong attendance at the first day of the BICES 1025 construction equipment exhibition in Chinese capital Beijing on the 22nd of September. Muggy weather and heavy traffic congestion failed to dissuade a large number of attendees visiting the show, located at the new exhibition centre close to Beijing Airport. For those opting to travel to the event by public transport, the proximity of the trade fair centre to the metro system made journeys highly convenient.

Significant gains in the cost of construction of the highway link between Schiphol Airport in the Netherlands and the country’s commercial centre, Amsterdam. The highway links Schiphol with Amsterdam as well as Almere and is being upgraded to increase its capacity as it suffers from heavy congestion and long delays at peak periods. The cost of this work is expected to be some €300 million more than was originally expected due to technical challenges that were unforeseen when the project commenced. The total

Indonesia’s Ministry of Public Works and Housing plans to allocate US$415.3 million in 2016 for the Trans Papua road project. The Indonesian Government’s plan is for the link to be ready for use and connecting the whole of Papua by 2019. However in excess of $830 million is required to fund work on the entire 4,325km route. Over 10km of bridges still remain to be constructed along with 827km of roads. Meanwhile of the existing 3,498km of road, only 2,075km are surfaced with asphalt at present while 1,423km

MISK wins tender for Moscow’s Yuzhnaya Rokada road The Moscow Engineering and Construction Company (MISK) has won the tender for construction of the second section of Moscow’s Southern lateral highway. MISK was the only contractors tendering for the contract, worth nearly US$74.3 million, for the section called Yuzhnaya Rokada. Details include construction of 5km of road, essential side lanes, more than 300m of overpasses and turnoffs. Work is expected to take nearly 20 months. The tender win co