News

UK contractor FM Conway has formally opened its new ship unloading facility at its asphalt plant at Erith in Kent on the banks of the River Thames near London. The unloading facility will allow the plant to increase efficiency for the delivery of recycled materials to the plant and reduce truck movements. This is one of the largest and most sophisticated asphalt plants capable of using recycled feed materials to make high quality asphalt road product. The Benninghoven BM5000 plant was purpose built for FM C

Chinese contractor Sinohydro is to start a road construction project in Moldova worth €48 million. It is likely to be the first of several Chinese companies to carry out work in the country.

Funding for a road project in Spain is being set out by contractor Sacyr. The savings banks Caixanova and Unicaja will provide the funding, which will allow work to be completed on a 24.5km stretch of the AP-46 toll road linking Malaga and Alto de Las Pedrizas as to date only half of the work has been finished on the €367 million project. A further €200 million is required, with Sacyr providing the rest from its own sources.

The UK Government’s annual report on the number of road deaths and injuries shows that 2,222 people were killed in Britain in 2009 while, according to police statistics, 24,690 were seriously injured. However, the real figure is estimated to be closer to 80,000 when data from other sources are taken into account. For the first time the government has estimated the total cost of road deaths and injuries to the economy, taking into account under-reporting of injuries by police and using other data sources.

The future of Britain’s highways industries, including maximising reduced budgets and improving road safety, forms the core of the conference programme at the Seeing is Believing event. With a keynote address and introduction by Roads Minister Mike Penning MP, Seeing is Believing, a combination of industry conference, trade exhibition and live demonstrations, has his full support, and is being held at a purpose-designed venue at the MIRA site, near Nuneaton, County Warwickshire, England, from 9-11 November

A new 1.5km tunnel to carry vehicle traffic, and estimated to cost €130 million, is being planned in the Finnish capital Helsinki. The tunnel would run under the Kalasatama area, and is the latest of several tunnelling projects under Helsinki. A major utility tunnel network system was started some years ago with the aim of reducing roadworks and congestion.

A report on road maintenance in 13 European nations highlights Italy as spending the most on its network in 2007. According to the data, Italy spent €835 million on road maintenance followed by the Netherlands with €786 million, the UK with €753 million and Spain with €718 million.

The new Ford Focus has become the first ever car to receive four Euro NCAP Advanced safety rewards after its driver alert and forward alert technologies were honoured this week. The rewards come a month after new Ford Ranger achieved an historic first by becoming the only pickup to receive a maximum 5 Star safety rating from Euro NCAP. Ranger also achieved the highest score ever recorded by Euro NCAP for pedestrian protection.

Belgian authorities are planning to tackle the growing problem of drivers operating vehicles while under the influence of drugs. Testing of a new system that uses saliva to establish whether drivers have drugs present in their system is now starting. Previous methods of testing for drugs using blood tests or psycho-motor skills will be replaced, should the tests on the new system prove successful.

Since 1990 loans worth a total of €10 billion have been granted by the EIB for Polish road projects, with some 20% of the loans going to private companies. During 2010, the EIB will be lending some €2.79 billion for Polish road projects.

Austria-headquartered Kapsch TrafficCom has been awarded the State Prize for Design 2011 in the category "Product design Industrial Design/Capital Goods" for its City Pole – a traffic telematics solution that sets the trend in terms of functionality and aesthetics. As the company points out, while telematics applications have become increasingly commonplace in the traffic segment in recent years, the focus has been mostly on technical components; design aspects were often only taken into consideration to th

TRL has seen significant growth in its software sales and consultant services to the Canadian market over the past 12 months. In order to continue its support to this important growth area it has joined the Transport Association of Canada (TAC) with members of TRL’s traffic and software team supporting its participation by attending the TAC Annual Conference and Exhibition in Halifax, Nova Scotia, in late September. Gavin Jackman, TRL’s Head of Traffic and Software said: “During the last 12 months we have