Skip to main content

Thomas Concrete Group “growing in the US and Europe”

The Swedish Thomas Concrete Group says it continues to grow in the United States, with the acquisition of three concrete plants in North and South Carolina, complementing the group’s network along the Atlantic coast. At the end of 2016, the Group also acquired three concrete plants in northern Poland. “Through strategic acquisitions in the US states of North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia, Thomas Concrete Group has over the years achieved a strong position as a key supplier of ready-mixed concre
February 17, 2017 Read time: 2 mins
The New Zealand government has confirmed that it is considering the introduction of open road tolling in Auckland.

Finance minister Steven Joyce told a business audience the government could support tolling but would not support a regional fuel tax.

He said, “There is no getting away from the fact that central Auckland is built on a narrow isthmus which makes it hard to get around – and the available land transport corridors are rapidly being used.

“So beyond the current building programme we are going to have to look at demand management to reduce the reliance on the road corridors, in favour of buses, trains and ferries.”

Joyce said the government is developing a work programme to look at demand management tools including electronic road tolling in the medium to long term. It would expect that any road pricing initiative on existing motorways and highways would predominantly be a replacement for petrol taxes and road user charges not in addition to them.

He said the government was keen to have a more detailed discussion about demand management tools and explore further options for longer term funding for new infrastructure, including the use of private finance for certain projects.

Related Content

  • Mounting benefits of dynamic tolling project
    January 30, 2012
    Wisconsin's four-year HOT lanes pilot project, launched in May 2008, cost US$18.8 million to construct. Halfway into the project, which uses variably priced, or dynamic, tolling to improve highway efficiency, the benefits are mounting. The problem was obvious, and frustrating, to anyone who ever sat in bumper-to-bumper traffic on State Route 167 and watched a lone car whiz by every 20 seconds or so in the carpool lane. But for planners at the Washington State Department of Transportation, the conundrum was
  • Viaduct deck renewal creates detour dilemma for MassDOT
    May 26, 2016
    As the deck renewal of the I-91 viaduct in Springfield gets underway, David Crawford looks at the preparation and planning to ease the resulting traffic congestion. Accommodating the deck renewal of a 4km-long/four-lanes in each direction viaduct in the heart of Springfield (Massachusetts’ third largest city), has involved the state’s Department of Transportation (MassDOT) in a massive exercise in transport research and ITS-based area-wide preplanning and traffic management. Supporting a workzone of well ab
  • Cybercrime is not a remote threat for toll operations
    February 8, 2017
    The rise of cybercrime is starting to impact tolling concessions, as Colin Sowman discovers. Yahoo’s revelation that it has taken two years to discover that it had suffered a security breach resulting in hackers stealing the details of 500 million users is shocking - although the hackers only gained access to users’ names, contact details and encrypted passwords.
  • Rapid growth of bus rapid transit schemes on US Pacific coast
    January 27, 2012
    This section pulls together all the multi-modal topics in each issue. Subject matter will include smartcards; ticketing and payment systems; passenger information systems; fleet management for buses, trains and light rail; park and ride systems; on-line access to real-time information via Internet portals