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Turkey recently unveiled ambitious targets towards improving its transportation infrastructure for 2023, the year the country will celebrate its 100th year anniversary as Republic of Turkey. The main means of transportation in Turkey is by highways, and the coach and bus industry has played a crucial role in passenger transportation. The recent increases in the number of airports and charter companies have made travel by plane a potential choice for passengers. However, railways have contributed rather insi

Worldwide new vehicle sales in 2012 are expected to rise 6.7 per cent over 2011 volumes to 77.7 million vehicles, according to Polk, a leading global automotive market intelligence firm. The company’s analysts believe the global economy will weather the current European sovereign debt crisis and consumers will return to showrooms around the world in 2012.

The Nepalese Government is pushing ahead with its road network improvement programme The government has managed to upgrade roads in 72 of the country’s 75 districts, despite the geographic challenges presented by its mountainous terrain and frequent steep slopes. One recent road revamp has been in Manang district where a new road has connected Chame with Besisahar and Lamjung. The link from Besisahar-Chame is 65km long, with plans in hand to surface a 35km stretch with asphalt over the next two years. Work

Effective yestereday, a new US Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) rule prohibits an estimated four million commercial truck and bus drivers from using handheld cell phones while driving.

Funding worth some €177.5 million from the European Commission (EC) will pay for a highway construction project in Romania. This non-refundable financing will pay for the construction of a 27.4km stretch of the Lugoj-Dumbrava highway. This section forms part of Lugoj-Deva highway that is itself a part of the Pan-European Corridor IV. The highway section will be built by a consortium formed by the Italian companies Tirrena Scavi, Societa Italiana per Condotte d'Acqua and Cossi Construzioni. Meanwhile moderni

The UK Government is now working on a plan to address the road safety issues caused by driving under the influence of drugs. A panel of experts has been set up to evaluate the levels of various illegal drugs in the bloodstream that would affect driving ability.

In the US state of Texas, work is in hand to build new bridges carrying US-281 over the Colorado River at Marble Falls. The Texas Department of Transportation has set a budget of close to US$30 million to replace the existing Lake Marble Falls Bridge with two new bridges.

Plans are in hand in Russia to improve the main highway that connects the country with Finland and the Scandinavian nations of Sweden and Norway.

Official statistics from Taiwan's Ministry of Interior show that in the first 11 months of 2011, there was a 3.28% increase in the number of road accidents that resulted in injuries or deaths, compared with the same period in the previous year. The number of traffic accidents that resulted in deaths at the scene of the accident or within a 24 hour period climbed 3.47% to 1,847 compared with the previous year.

The latest official statistics from the Italian authorities show an improving road safety situation. Italy's statistics institute Istat has data showing that road accidents decreased by 1.9% to 211,404 in 2010. Meanwhile the number of people injured dropped by 1.5% to 302,735, and fatalities were down 3.5% to 4,090. Despite having failed to achieve the 50% fatalities reduction target set in 2001, the country saved €25 billion in social costs. Accidents decreased by 1% on highways, although fatalities rose b

The Colombian authorities have launched 17 road infrastructure tenders worth a total of US$1.89 billion. The tender process is remaining open until 30th January 2012.

Carillion has been awarded a US$16 million contract to transform another section of the UK’s M6 in Birmingham, between Junctions 5 and 8, into a managed motorway.

Russia’s road building and upgrading programme is now gathering pace. Russia's Federal Highway Agency plans to bring over 85% of federal roads into conformity with road traffic regulations. The Federal Highway Agency has boosted construction of rural roads by establishing road funds and built over 500km in 2011. The Russian Government plans to allocate nearly US$198 million to build key roads in 2012. The Federal Highway Agency has set road upgrades as a top-priority. Under this plan road bearing capacity w

Video detection specialist Traficon has been awarded a contract to provide video image processors for traffic monitoring inside the Södra Länken and Norra Länken tunnels in Stockholm, Sweden. The company will provide some 763 of its VIP-T modules, which have been designed for automatic incident detection and traffic data analysis.

A fresh set of problems has hit the long planned Messina Straits Bridge in Italy.

Reductions in road building budgets are being implemented in various departments in France, in a bid to cut overall spending. In 2009 some €4.5 billion was spent on the road budget, compared with €3.9 billion planned for 2012. Various local authorities were able to make small cuts in roads budgets until now. However the budget reductions are now becoming more direct as local authorities are seeing their resources fall and social costs rise.

Plans are in hand for major upgrades to Russia’s road network. Russian Highways (Avtodor) aims to construct 958km of roads, as well as to reconstruct 963km of road and improve 700km of road bed by 2019. The 684km M11 highway linking Moscow with St Petersburg is the top-priority. A 72km bypass road will be built in the Tver region. In total, Avtodor says it will invest US$45.3 billion in building tolled roads in Russia by 2019. Avtodor completed work on the 25km M-4 highway in December 2011. Meanwhile a tend

Germany’s Government intends to boost transportation infrastructure spending, with the majority of funds going towards roads. An increase of €1 billion will be targeted at transport with some 60% of that budget being used for improvements to the country’s road network. In contracts some 30% will be for port, canal and general shipping infrastructure with a mere 10% for rail investment. The German Government has also granted approval for work to the next stretch of the A44 autobahn. The new 7km link will run

Bosnia’s highway company Autoceste Federacije BiH will invest €500 million in the construction of the Corridor Vc road. The European Investment Bank (EIB) will provide a loan of €166 million to part finance the project. The plans call for the construction of the 56km highway as well as an additional 10km of the Sarajevo ringroad. The cost of the project is three times higher than any other that the country has so far planned. Autoceste Federacije BiH has said that it will finance land expropriation.

In a surprise move the Turkish authorities have now cancelled the tender process for the construction of the third Bosphorus Bridge and the Kuzey Marmara highway. The process was cancelled as there were no bidders.