Road Structures

Two large highway projects in India are now moving forward following the award of contracts by the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI). The NHAI awarded a contract worth US$269.62 million to Hindustan Construction Co (HCC) for the construction of a highway in the local state of Jammu and Kashmir. The project is part of the second stage of the National Highways Development Project (NHDP) initiative by the NHAI for the NH 1A highway, and covers 36km including 3km of tunnels between Banihal and Ramban.

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.

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

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

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

The Portuguese road operator Infraestruturas de Portugal is to tender a €13 million contract for refurbishment of the international bridge over the Guadiana river, connecting Vila Real de Santo Antonio in Portugal and Ayamonte in Spain. The work will take 18 months and the cost will be shared by both countries, a report in Diário Económico said. Around 80% of the river is in Portugal. The river flows east to west through Spain, then south through Portugal, then forming the Spanish-Portuguese border

Plans for the Pan Borneo Highway project are gathering pace in Malaysia. The tender process for the project will commence in 2016. This is being handled by the Malaysian Works Ministry. The first section of the Pan Borneo Highway project will involve tenders worth US$4.17 billion alone. This stretch of the route will run from Telok Melano-Miri through Kuching, Sibu, Bintulu, Serian and Sematan. The tenders will be for 10 separate packages of works. The project schedule calls for work on these 10 sections of