Road Structures

The German province of Thuringia plans to maintain, repair and develop its road network during 2016. A budget of €222 million has been set for spending on roads in Thuringia during 2016 by the authorities. During the summer period there will be 37 workzone sites on Thuringia's road network. The main commercial and administrative centre for Thuringia is Erfurt, although the province also includes the historically important towns of Weimar and Eisenach.

In South Korea a contractor has been awarded the deal to construct and important new stretch of highway. The US$263.3 million deal is for a section of the Seoul-Sejong expressway. Hanwha Engineering & Construction (Hanwha E&C) will construct the section of the route in Gyeonggi Province. In all the new route will measure some 129km when complete and will connect Guri in Gyeonggi Province to Sejong. This will be one of several new highways running from north to south in South Korea.

Plans are being made for a new bridge to connect Clarinda in Argentina with Puerto Falcon in Paraguay. The bridge will span the Pilcomayo River, the longest tributary of the Paraguay River and it will connect Highway 11 in Argentina with Highway 12 in Paraguay, close to its capital, Asuncion. The new bridge is needed as the current structure is over 50 years old and is becoming unable to cope adequately with traffic demands. Both countries will fund the construction of the new bridge, which will help to dev

India is busy with plans to expand its highway network. The work is being managed by the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) and up to 97 different highway projects are envisaged in the complete programme. Some US$16 billion worth of projects could be awarded in the 2016-2017 period if all the planned projects move ahead as anticipated. These would deliver an additional 6,631km of highways in total. At present there are 250 highway construction projects underway in India, while 400 have already been

Further delays to completion look a possibility for Colombia’s La Linea Tunnel project. A strike by truck drivers meant that supplies of construction materials were halted, adding to previous delays. The country’s National Road Institute (Invias) has stated that work on the tunnel does not look likely to be finished until the first quarter of 2017. The project will only be completed before that date if faster progress can be achieved with the electro-mechanical works currently in hand. Invias has previously

Romania’s road building programme is moving forward, but perhaps more slowly than the country’s National Company for Highways and Roads (CNADNR) would prefer. At present a total of 733km of highways are open to use in Romania, but new sections measuring up to 260km in all should be ready for traffic by the end of 2017. A further 22km of the A1 highway connecting Orastie with Sibiu is expected to open in the third quarter of 2016. The Deva to Lugoj stretch of the A1 has also to be completed, while a section

A series of major road projects will be carried out by Portuguese contractor Mota Engil in Angola and Brazil. In all the work is worth in excess of US$419 million. The company is building a 10km section of the Via Expressa around capital Luanda, as well as upgrading another key route in the city. Luanda’s population has grown significantly in recent years and many existing roads are now proving unable to cope with demand.