Road Structures

The cost of rebuilding the Leopold II tunnel in Brussels has increased from original estimates. The tunnel runs from the Koekelberg Basilica to central Brussels and the three year contract is planned to commence in 2017. Two funding options are in the frame with a conventional tender process and annual maintenance deal expected to cost €450 million. The design, build, finance and maintain (DBFM) option would cost €665 million over a 30 year period meanwhile.

A new report is now available detailing the performance of the demolition industry within Europe during 2015. This has been produce by the European Demolition Association (EDA) and is titled the European Demolition Industry Report 2015. The report was compiled by the Deutscher Abbruchverband (DA), the Statistics Working Group of the EDA, headed by Andreas Pocha, general manager of DA.

Florida’s I-4 Ultimate highway project recently won a major award. The I-4 won the Best Transport Project award at the 2015 P3 Awards ceremony. Among entries, the US$2.3 billion highway project was recognised for its scale, complexity, and overall performance. Stretching through Orlando, the I-4 Ultimate project is a massive makeover of 33.6km of highway. It includes over a dozen reconstructed interchanges, 74 rebuilt bridges, 53 new bridges, and construction of four new express lanes. According to the P

Three major new bridge projects are now being carried out in Vietnam. All three of the bridges are being carried out under the build-operate-transfer (BOT) model with completion scheduled for 2018. The 3.26km Chau Doc Bridge will link the towns of Tan Chau and Chau Doc in An Giang Province. Meanwhile the other two bridges will improve the road connection between Tra Ving Province and Soc Trang Province. The Dai Nghia Bridge No1 measures 0.86km long while the Dai Nghia Bridge No2 measures 2.24km long.

A loan facility will help pay for new road development planned for Honduras. The US$150 million, 20 year loan has been approved by the Central American Bank for Economic Integration (CABEI). The PIV road infrastructure scheme set out by Honduras is intended to develop the country’s network. The funding will be used on over 180kms of roads in various parts of the country.

Plans are in hand in Malaysia to build a new highway costing US$1.06 billion. The route will run from Jelapang-Selama-Batu Kawan and the proposal has been put forward by Beta Mutiara. The three-lane highway will stretch for 116km between Jelapang, Perak and Batu Kawan, Penang. Should the work get the go ahead the project would be carried out by Beta Mutiara subsidiary BMT Jelas.

State-owned Indonesian toll road firm Jasa Marga plans to increase its network by 460km by 2018. This will bring its total network to 1,050km by 2018. During 2016, Jasa Marga intends to spend US1 billion developing its toll road network and general operations. By 2018, the Trans Java toll road should be open to traffic.

Korean company Daedong claimed that its vibro breaker offers an efficient and productive alternative to using hydraulic hammers in primary and secondary breaking. The company is keen to boost its share of the export market and is targeting the extraction sector. Kevin Ahn, manager for overseas sales at the firm, said, “We are trying to introduce the product to the world.” The Daedong vibro breaker is also said to be more durable, efficient and twice as productive as competing products using a similar con