News

In India plans are in hand to construct a new tunnel ring road for Mumbai. The project is expected to cost as much as US$14.4 billion. However the Indian Government is keen to reduce the construction costs considerably. The bypass tunnel would be connected with the planned highway linking to Ahmedabad. The aim of the bypass tunnel project would be to help reduce congestion in the city’s historic centre, by diverting through traffic.

The project to construct Malaysia’s West Coast Expressway deal has been awarded to a major contractor. Under the terms of the deal, the project will be carried out by the IJM-Kumpulan Europlus joint venture. The five year contract is expected to cost in the region of US$1.44 billion to carry out. When complete the new expressway will cut journey times between Taiping and Banting.

The Highways Agency in the UK has appointed a joint venture between Mott MacDonald and Grontmij to analyse various options for upgrades to the A27 Chichester Bypass. The aim of this project is to improve traffic flow and relieve congestion. The bypass is a 5km dual carriageway with five roundabouts and one signal control junction. It provides a key east-west transport link along the south coast of England. This connects Brighton, Worthing, Chichester, Portsmouth, Southampton. It currently suffers from heavy

In New Zealand a new safety drive is being handled by the local authorities of Tauranga, Dunedin, Christchurch and Auckland. These are among the four cities in New Zealand that have teamed up with the New Zealand Transport Agency for kiwiRAP to establish a road risk mapping scheme. Under the programme, areas that require attention to address high risk concerns will be identified. According to Colin Brodie, Chief Safety Advisor of New Zealand Transport Agency, the urban kiwiRAP programme will use traffic and

Preliminary data from Germany suggests that there will be little road safety improvement for 2014, compared with the previous year. This follows decreases in crash fatalities in the last two years. According to estimates of the German Federal Statistical Office (Destatis), key data available for the months from January to September 2014 shows that there will be approximately 3,350 traffic crash fatalities for this year. The figure is broadly similar as for 2013, when there were 3,339 road deaths. This means

A major highway widening and upgrade project is being carried out in the Netherlands in a bid to improve traffic flow on some of Europe’s busiest routes. SAAone is carrying out the work for the A1-A6 motorway project for Rijkswaterstaat, the Dutch Directorate-General for Public Works and Water Management. A key component of the project is adding new lanes to the A1 and A6 highways.

In Mexico plans are proceeding on schedule for a new section of the Mexico City-Puebla motorway. The highway will be completed as planned, between July and August 2016, according to the Transport and Communications body SCT. The new section of highway will measure 13.3km long and feature four lanes.

The organisers of the next bauma Africa event are confident that it will beat the attendance for the previous show. The premier of bauma Africa in 2013 was successful, attracting 754 exhibitors from 28 countries and 14,700 visitors from over 110 countries. For 2015, the two leading trade fair organisers in the construction and mining machinery sector, Messe München International and AEM have set up a joint venture, Bauma CONEXPO Africa. With increased visitor marketing planned for 2015, this event promises

The tender process is underway for a new tunnel link in the Southern German state of Bavaria.

The BAM PPP PGGM and Iridium consortium has been named preferred bidder for the N25 New Ross Bypass project in the Irish Republic. The US$270 million (€217 million) contract - Design, Build, Finance, Maintain and Operate - involves 13.6 km of dual carriageway on the N25 and N30 routes and 1.2 km of the carriageway New Ross N30 route. Construction is expected to support around 300 jobs across Ireland and will be undertaken by a joint venture of BAM Civil and civil engineering firm Dragados. The road will

Contractor Balfour Beatty has completed the €132.4 million (£105 million) upgrade of the last remaining single carriageway section of the A11. This section of the route runs between Barton Mills in Suffolk and Thetford in Norfolk. The work involved dualling nearly 15km of carriageway on behalf of the Highways Agency.