Road Structures

A major toll road development programme in Indonesia will see nearly 70km of new links opening by 2023. The programme is worth US$2.99 billion and has been pushed forward by Jakarta Tollroad Development (JTD). Around 50% of the planned links are already complete.

Work will commence on the Nairobi-Mombasa expressway in mid-2018. The new highway will help develop Kenya’s economy by providing an improved highway connection between the country’s capital and its premier port. The 473km-long highway connection will be built by Bechtel and has a projected cost of US$3 billion. Bechtel is sourcing the necessary financing and will also have the concession to operate the highway link. Journey times should be halved along the route with the opening of the highway.

A UK contractor has revamped its training to help employees avoid damaging utilities, not to mention suffering injury or loss of life, when digging. Eurovia and Ringway have set up Safe Dig Training designed to reduce underground service strikes. Strikes can occur when the ground is disturbed through works preparations, erecting site signage and repaving or resurfacing work. The safe dig areas have been built in strategic depots across England as part of the training to assess competency following a servic

Upgrading work for the I-85 route in South Carolina will be carried out by Lane Construction. The project is worth US$181 million and will see an extra lane being added in either direction to the stretch of the I-85 highway that runs through Cherokee County. This project will provide three lanes in either direction, boosting capacity and cutting congestion at peak periods along the route. In addition to building the extra lanes, the contractor will build a number of new interchanges and sections of link roa

A Chinese firm has won the contract to supply the tunnel boring machine (TBM) for a major road tunnelling project in Bangladesh. The Chinese manufacturer, Tianhe Mechanical Equipment Manufacturing (Tianhe Mechanical), is building the TBM to the specific design requirements of the client. This piece of equipment is the largest TBM built so far in China and tips the scales at 2,200tonnes, while it features a cutter diameter of 12.12m. The TBM will be used to drive a 3.5km-long road tunnel running under the K

A highway project worth US$153.5 million in India’s Tamil Nadu State will be handled by IRB Infrastructure Developers. The same firm will also build a 29km stretch of NH 45A between Viluppuram and Puducherry. A 38km section of NH 45A between Puducherry and Poondiyankuppam meanwhile will be built by Oriental Structural Engineers. These three contracts were all awarded by the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI).

A new timeline has been set for the work to rebuild Russia’s Central Ring Road 4, a project worth US$1.48 billion. The work will now be carried out from the end of 2019 to the end of 2020. The highway is being built by a consortium that comprises the Russian Direct Investment Fund, Avtoban, and the Turkish contractor Makyol.

A new highway project is being planned for India’s Uttar Pradesh State. The US$522.7 million project will see a 100km section of the Hapur Bypass being widened, so that it will feature three lanes in either direction. This section of the route is from Moradabad to Hapur and the work will be carried out by IRB Infrastructure Developers. The contract was awarded by the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) under the build, operate and transfer model.