Features

India’s road safety record is the world’s worst but there are plans to tackle the problems. Patrick Smith reports from New Delhi. A speeded up video of a short section of road in the Indian capital Delhi was followed by a question. “How many infringements did you count in that 25-second clip on a typical day in Delhi,” asked Dr Rohit Baluja, a question that brought understandable silence. It equated to hundreds of millions of infringements each year, said Dr Baluja, president, Institute of Road Traffic Educ

Lafarge Aggregates Malaysia’s Kulai quarry is designed to the highest standards of safety, productivity and efficiency With an emphasis on high standards of safe, efficient and productive operations, Lafarge Aggregates Malaysia recently installed new quarry plant. It became operational earlier this year after Sandvik Mining and Construction Malaysia designed and installed a 250tonnes/hour, four-stage crushing and screening plant in Kulai, Johor, some 270km south of the capital Kuala Lumpur. It is now fully

Centralised asset management, more use of the latest machine and worksite technology, and deploying value added logistics in machine delivery will enable the construction equipment industry to build on slow world market growth, a panel of expert speakers told attendees at the Construction Equipment World Economic Forum (CEWEF) 2012 The key industry event in Brussels saw more than 130 representatives from across the international construction equipment world given a forecast of 3.5% global growth for their i

Dan Gilkes reports on a Belgian highway upgrade When the Ministry of Public Works in the Belgian State of Flanders decided to reconstruct and resurface 19km of the N49 Antwerp-Knokke Expressway, continuously reinforced concrete paving (CRCP) with an exposed aggregate surface was the natural material choice. Indeed exposed aggregate, with its high grip and low noise benefits, has been the first option for all motorway surfacing work in Belgium since the 1980s. However, the €15.65 million contract is not a li

Empty environmental commitments from governments, falling bitumen quality and the impact of the economic crisis - DenimoTech asked some of its global distributors about the challenges of today’s markets - Kristina Smith was there to listen in Competition from Chinese manufacturers; highways abandoned half-built; the worst year for road building in the last 20 years. These are challenging times for DenimoTech’s distributors whose goal is to sell the firm’s bitumen emulsion and polymer modified bitumen plants

Leading asphalt plant manufacturers have recently unveiled their latest products aimed at customers looking for significant efficiency gains through the use of durable and lasting technology. Guy Woodford looks at some of the new batch Benninghoven showcased a wide variety of its new and innovative asphalt plants and individual plant components during its week-long Open Days event last month at the German firm’s HQ in Mülheim. Launched earlier this year, the MMX80 Continuous Asphalt Plant is capable of prod

The Honorary and the Outreach Committees of the 17th IRF World Meeting & Exhibition held their first meetings in Paris, France to review the management plan and concept program of what promises to be the most important global event for the road industry in 2013. The Honorary Committee, chaired by current IRF chairman and mayor of Riyadh H.E. Eng. Abdullah Al-Mogbel, and representation of each major region of the world, met in Paris on September 7 at the headquarters of the well-known French firm Colas. Asse

IRF’s itinerant cycle of training seminars aimed at helping countries eliminate needless deaths and meet their commitments to the UN Decade of Action for Road Safety made a notable stop in San Jose, Costa Rica on September 12-14. Safer Roads by Design - Costa Rica was hosted by the National Laboratory of Materials and Structural Models of the University of Costa Rica (Lanamme UCR), the country’s leading knowledge centre on road engineering, with additional support from the Inter-American Development Bank an

Warm mix asphalt can save energy and the environment, cutting emissions of carbon dioxide and other harmful gases, but are environmental arguments enough for clients and contractors? Kristina Smith asks Though popular in the United States, warm mix asphalt is still a technology waiting to happen in the rest of the world. Chemical companies who imagined a meteoric rise in sales are still waiting for the right economic conditions to allow warm mix to start taking serious market share from hot mix. “In Europe

Bolstered by building machines for Caterpillar and high demand for its VDS equipped excavators, Wacker Neuson has greatly increased its compact equipment building capability in Linz - Nick Johnson reports At a time when some other construction equipment makers have still scaled back their operations following the global economic crisis, Wacker Neuson has been busy building new facilities and increasing its production capacity. Last month the company officially opened its new compact equipment production fac

Major new tunnel construction projects will, on completion, help secure more reliable journey times for hundreds of thousands of people across the world. Meanwhile, as Guy Woodford reports, leading ITS solution companies have been providing vital equipment for major road tunnels The Martina Tunnel Boring Machine (TBM), a 4,500tonne Herrenknecht Earth Pressure Balance Shield said to have a world record diameter of 15.55m, has required just under a year to build the first of two tunnel tubes for the 2.5km lon

One leading Weigh in Motion technology manufacturer is helping governments in developing countries reduce excessive road damage, while several others have seen their latest WIM systems recently used on the highways of Eastern Europe. Guy Woodford reports Recent Central Weighing WIM installations in Bangladesh are helping its national government reduce the financial burden of excessive road damage, while also protecting many bridges that are vital to transport and trade. The need for such installations was e

Max Lay discusses how congestion has posed problems throughout history from early civilisation to the present day One of the earliest known human settlements was at the Springs of Elisha at Jericho. Inevitably, locals collecting fresh water from the springs would encounter other water carriers. When a path was too narrow, or access to it was too limited, or it crossed another path, some carriers would find it necessary to stand aside for others. Priority in such cases might be based on common courtesy and p

The Russian road building industry is on the verge of big changes as it bids to improve quality and speed of construction says Eugene Gerden The Russian road building industry is on the verge of big changes as the national government considers creating conditions to attract foreign companies to build roads in the country. According to a recent order of President Vladimir Putin, due to poor quality and high cost of road construction, there is a need for the development of a mechanism to attract foreign compa

Innovative technology is use is providing efficient, clean burning engines - Mike Woof reports The development of new diesel engine technology has, for the off-highway equipment sector, been the single most expensive research field for the industry since these machines first started being manufactured. Aimed at reducing the emissions of nitrous oxide as well as particulate matter, in a phased series of stages the engine emission improvements will make major changes to the construction sector. In real world