Search

Urgent repairs will continue on the Forth Road Bridge in east central Scotland this weekend after work the previous weekend was disrupted by strong winds. The bridge authority has also confirmed that a further three weekends of traffic restrictions will be required over the following weeks. On Saturday 17 and Sunday 18 March traffic will be restricted to a single lane in each direction from 3am until 12noon.

The organisers of the 2012 World of Asphalt/World of Aggregates event in Charlotte North Carolina claim records have been broken for this year’s exhibition and conference. The event is run by the Association of Equipment Manufacturers, AEM.

The authorities in Romania are launching the tender process for a new highway section. The country’s national roads and highways company, CNADNR, is handling the tenders for the project, which involves designing and building a 9km section of the Transilvania Highway between Gilau and Nadaselu in Cluj county.

Navtech Radar will be showcasing the safety and economic benefits of using longer-range radar systems for Automated Incident Detection (AID) and enforcement at Intertraffic 2012. The company’s ClearWay sensor technology is currently deployed in live tunnel and above-ground environments in Northern Europe and has been further developed to provide count and classification capabilities as well as an effective counter to illegal tailgating and unsafe lane-change manoeuvres.

Serbian contractor Milos Trans will start work on the Serbia’s Corridor 11 highway during 2012. The firm will carry out work on the stretch running from Preljina to Takovo.

Mitsubishi Electric Visual Solutions America has announced it is shipping three new widescreen DLP cubes in its popular Seventy Series line of video wall products. These displays incorporate Mitsubishi’s most advanced technologies, providing innovative automated features that boost image quality and colour balance, extend the life of the LED engine under certain operating conditions, and improve overall usability.

Chinese construction equipment firm Sany is buying Putzmeister, the German manufacturer of concrete pumps. The terms of the deal have not been revealed officially but the acquisition is said to be worth €360-500 million according to various reports.

A leading American manufacturing association figure claims Congress approval of the highway bill would create a “much-needed growth engine” for US jobs, infrastructure, and national and global domestic company trade.

The Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research, TNO, is in the process of developing a low cost cooperative adaptive cruise control (CACC) technology. This is being demonstrated in a test fleet of Toyota Prius cars in which factory-fitted long-range radar is used together with wireless vehicle to vehicle communications (802.11p and ETSI Geonet) and GPS based location, to enable CACC.

An English borough council has invested more than £500,000 in a new fleet of state-of-the-art GPS guided gritting trucks to help combat the big winter chill descending on Britain.

Brazilian group Bertin is forming a partnership with Italian company Atlantia to merge the management of road concessions they both own in Brazil.

Denso Corporation, in collaboration with Tongji University, Shanghai, will begin testing vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2X) technology on public roads in Taicang, Jiangsu Province, China on 22 March , 2012.

A senior US construction association figure has praised congressional leaders for breaking the “logjam” over the introduction of a highway bill to generate jobs and improve transport infrastructure.

The US-based Association of Equipment Manufacturers (AEM) is calling on the US authorities to take positive action that will help boost trade with Russia. With Russia joining the World Trade Organisation (WTO) in the coming months, the AEM is calling on the US authorities to grant Russia Permanent Normal Trade Relations (PNTR).

Investment in infrastructure is a key priority for the US. With a three-part growth strategy, business improving worldwide and improvements in order books, the Terex Group is looking to increase net sales to US$8 billion by 2013. Ron DeFeo, Terex’s chief operating officer, said the company has been seeing increased order and quotation activity across nearly all of its product categories.

Leica Geosystems says that its new Viva TS12 performance robotic package offers a comprehensive package of surveying solutions. High accuracy surveying can be achieved using this cost-effective system, according to the firm. The package comprises the Leica Viva TS12 Total Station, the Viva CS10 Controller and the easy-to-use SmartWorx Viva Onboard Software. The Viva TS12 can be used to find, lock and measure points to prisms with accuracy.

Wirtgen brothers Jürgen and Stefan discussed growth opportunities. Jürgen Wirtgen and Stefan Wirtgen are joint presidents of the Wirtgen Group and see business levels continuing to improve. Stefan said, “Generally speaking we are surprised with the growth levels, especially in the BRIC countries. It is giving us quite a big boost and is allowing us to grow. We are more than happy with 2011 so far as the order books are full and we didn’t expect this.”

ITS America has released the preliminary program for its upcoming 22nd Annual Meeting & Exposition, 21-23 May, 2012, at the Gaylord Hotel & Convention Center, National Harbor, Maryland, just outside of Washington, D.C.

Ennis Prismo continues to expand its range of road marking products with the addition of two new solutions. One is used to form temporary markings and the other to provide more permanent lines. The two products are known as Easymark Temporary and Easymark Permanent respectively. These fast drying aerosols can be used in car parks and on roads and are non harmful to the environment and aquatic life. Both Easymark products can be used on a range of surfaces including asphalt, concrete, metal and timber. Compe

Sandvik’s Thomas Schulz talks to Claire Symes about market recovery in construction. In the three years since the last CONEXPO-CON/AGG exhibition, the construction industry has been through a tremendous change triggered by the global economic downturn. “At the time of the last exhibition in 2008, it was already clear that there was a levelling out occurring in the market,” said Sandvik president of construction Thomas Schulz. “But it was in October that year that the economy went into freefall after the col