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Delays are expected for the project to build a new tunnel connecting Denmark with Germany. Femern, the firm managing the 19km Fehmarnbelt tunnel project from Denmark to Germany, has said that the current time plan is too ambitious. Femern believes that it will be 2015 rather than 2014 before work will commence. The tunnel would then open in 2012.

Leica Geosystems has launched v3.0 of its Leica PaveSmart 3D system, which is designed specifically for concrete and asphalt paving and milling applications. This upgraded package is now said to support a wider range of paving equipment and applications than before. PaveSmart 3D v3.0 will be available late March 2012 through Leica Geosystems’ direct sales and approved paving solution distribution channels, including GOMACO.

The new Hyderabad Outer Ring Road (ORR) project is a 158km eight-lane highway encircling the Andhra Pradesh city. It has been designed to relieve congestion in and around the city and to act as a hub for accessing India's national highway network, and is being built for the Hyderabad Metropolitan Development Authority. Indian contractor Ramky Infrastructure is relying on an Atlas Copco MB 1700 hydraulic breaker to break granite as aggregates at a quarry site adjacent to the new road. The rock is bein

Indeco's innovative HP18000 hydraulic hammer is now being proven in a tough demolition application in the US. The Italian company hopes to sell more of its innovative HP18000 models now that its class-leading hydraulic system is proving its worth in the field. Tipping the scales at an impressive 11tonnes, the HP18000 is now the biggest breaker available on the market anywhere and is designed for use on carriers that weigh up to 140tonnes. Some 4.6m long and with a 250mm diameter tool, the HP18000 can delive

One of the most notable developments in the loading and hauling sector though again comes from Liebherr, with the long awaited launch of its ADT range.

The strong road construction market in Morocco is helping boost the quarrying market in the country substantially. One such operation exists near the town of Ben Slimane, situated north of Casablanca. Agregat Oued Cherrat (AOC) owns a 65ha quarry, one of the largest of the 14 in the region and when the firm decided to buy new excavators, it also opted to buy Hitachi machines. AOC placed an order for one ZX330-3, with the second delivered three months later and the company now has three ZX330-3s, with a four

The bridge over Auckland Harbour celebrates its half century this year, and it has been given a major upgrade to ensure that safety is maintained in New Zealand's largest city. Mary Searle reports. Auckland is New Zealand's largest city, home to nearly a third of the entire country's population. It's a sprawling metropolis, and its 1.3 million people are spread over 637km² of city, suburbs and islands. The Auckland Harbour Bridge, which celebrates its 50th birthday in May, is a vital link in the city's road

Caterpillar's new 390DL excavator is said to delivers higher performance and increased durability over the 385C model it replaces.

A novel use of a scrap shear has helped safety upgrades for the A14 highway linking the Italian cities of Bari and Naples. A Promove SC2200 scrap shear has been used to cut and remove old steel guard-rail on the highway.

DELTA, which has introduced its brand new handheld RetroSign GR3 retroreflectometer for measuring the retroreflection of traffic signs, also offers a number of instruments for road markings. The Danish company points out that as the median age of the average driver grows the importance of night-time visibility of pavement markings for traffic safety becomes even greater. "Night-time visibility is determined by the retroflectivity of the pavement markings and therefore retroreflectivity is an important p

Italian firm Indeco is now offering a novel compressor system that can be mounted on an excavator being used with a breaker in tunnelling operations.

Danish company DELTA has launched its new LTL-M mobile retroreflectometer. The company, a leading supplier of retroreflectometers for road markings and road signs, says that until now hand-held retroreflectometers have been the only instruments accurate enough and accepted for contractual valid measurements of road markings. However, it points to laboratory and field tests performed by the Swedish Road Research Institute (VTI), which compared the LTL-M, an existing mobile retrometer and using a hand-h

Specialist materials company, Element Six, hopes to boost worldwide sales for its high performance tungsten carbide tools. The firm has been manufacturing road planing picks for over 20 years and has proven its products in Europe but is looking to develop its worldwide profile. Well-proven in the European market, the company’s MasterGrade range is increasingly used by road contractors globally. The MasterGrade product is said to feature a high quality tungsten carbide grade, which the firm claims can delive

Italian firm Marcegaglia has developed a new range of steel road safety barriers that is said to be versatile and cost effective. The units meet containment levels N2 to H4 and can be specified for different options in terms of working width levels (W). The line-up includes a dedicated system for motorcyclist protection designed to be fitted to all existing guardrails, a new P4 energy absorbing terminal system for barriers and a renewed range of steel New Jersey barriers, with optional integrated noise prot

When the main commuter route into Cardiff, the Welsh capital, began to suffer from acute deformation, the Vale of Glamorgan Council required a durable and faster alternative to hot rolled asphalt to ensure minimum disruption for local road users.

On South Korea's southern coast, an innovative highway sea crossing is providing many engineering challenges The new Busan-Geoje crosses from South Korea's second city to its biggest island and is slightly shorter than the 12km of the country's famous Incheon project. In addition the main cable stay bridge for the Busan-Geoje project has a 475m span rather than the 800m of the Incheon central span. However the 8.2km Busan-Geoje project faces perhaps greater technical challenges and also includes a second b

Work is continuing to upgrade Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport (CSIA), India's largest airport in Mumbai, the country's largest city. The airport is equipped with a cross runway system (primary runway) and (secondary runway), with both intersecting each other at a common point. As part of the overall master plan for the modernisation of CSIA, Mumbai International Airport (MIAL) is completely reconstructing both the runways to create an efficient airside infrastructure, which is the core of an

The high sophistication of GPS machine control systems has resulted in a fast pace of technological advancement. The three major players in the machine control sector, Leica Geosystems, Topcon and Trimble have all made major gains in recent years. The sophistication of the latest systems can combine satellite position data from the GPS and GLONASS networks with information from total stations to provide precise, high speed machine operation. Further more the firms have also prepared themselves for the intro

A new Caterpillar grade control system can be installed at the factory to certain Tier 4 Interim/ Stage IIIB emission compliant dozers, graders, scrapers and excavators. The technology improves operator efficiency and equipment performance while reducing the overall cost of a machine guidance system on site.

Vietnam's new highway projects Key highway projects are being planned in Vietnam including the Ninh Binh-Thanh Hoa Expressway, which will run for 127km and is expected to cost US$1.6 billion to construct.