Month: December 2019

7th Annual International Conference in Kosovo

With the theme “Mobility Challenges in Transport and Public Safety” the 7^th Annual International Conference is organized by the College of Applied Technical Sciences "Tempulli” in collaboration with the Faculty of Public Safety, Kosovo Academy of Public Safety, and with the support of the Institute for Road Safety and Transport Research, Albanian Safety Academy and Kosovo Motorization Association AMRKS. To be held from 23 to 25 January 2020 at the Kosovo Academy for Public Safety in Vushtrri, this conference, unlike the conferences of previous years, has a scientific character and aims to create a new platform for raising issues related to public safety, traffic, transport, road safety, logistics, mobility, environment and alternative energy. The call is open to all academics, researchers, teachers, experts and students of all technical sciences. Based on our collaborations with various institutional partners from the country, the region and Europe, this conference will be the most important event of the beginning of next year, bringing together researchers from different technical fields who will share their academic thinking, ideas, opinions and expertise in their respective fields, contributing to a better understanding of changes and challenges in technical sciences.

Important dates:
Deadline for submission of abstracts: December 13th, 2019.
Deadline for submission of completed papers: December 31st, 2019.
Reviewing the work with comments and suggestions: January 8th, 2020.
Submission of revised papers - final version: January 11th, 2020.

The accepted papers will be published with an ISBN number.

Abstracts should be submitted in Albanian and English at this email address: conference@tempulli.org.

by Mao Macatangay

University of Qatar visits Switzerland’s universities to discuss partnership opportunities

The University of Qatar led a Delegation to Switzerland to visit universities working on topics related to Transportation, Traffic Safety and Mobility. The objective of the visit was to discuss potential future collaboration among the respective institutions and the Qatar University’s Transportation and Traffic Safety Center (QTTSC).

The delegation was composed of:

• Prof. Dr. Faris Tarlochan – QTTSC Director
• Dr. Wael Alhajyaseen – QTTSC Assistant Professor

The delegation was accompanied by IRF DG, Susanna Zammataro and Smart Mobility and Innovation Manager, Gonzalo Alcaraz. In total, the delegation visited four institutions including:

• University of Geneva – Meeting with Professor and ISI Director, Dimitri Konstantas.
• EPFL – Meeting with José Ibarra, Industrial Liaison Officer of TRACE (Transportation Center)
• Bern University of Applied Sciences – Meeting with Professor of Transport Infrastructures Nicolas Bueche and Director of the Institute for Materials and Wood Technology, Frédéric Pichelin.
• ETHZ – Meeting with Professor of Infrastructure Management and Head of the Institute for Construction and Infrastructure Management, Bryan Adey.

All meetings included a presentation about the research capabilities and expertise of QTTSC along with discussions on possible mechanisms for research collaborations, including joint projects / graduate student exchange programs, and research management processes.

IRF was pleased to accompany the delegation, also in view of the recently signed a MoU, between QTTSC and IRF, to further expand and consolidate collaboration and exchange of expertise particularly on traffic safety.

by Mao Macatangay

Corridor 10 through Serbia completed

Newly-built sections of the eastern branch of the Corridor 10, from Prosek to Crvena Reka, were officially opened near the Bancarevo tunnel on Saturday, 9 November, 2019.

The opening of newly-constructed sections of the eastern branch of Corridor 10 for traffic, from Prosek to Crvena reka, has marked the completion of the construction of Corridor 10 through Serbia.

The section of the motorway Е-80 from Prosek to the border with the Republic of Bulgaria is 86.8 km long in total and consists of 87 bridges, 5 tunnels with modern equipment – “Bancarevo“, “Sopot“, “Sarlah“, “Pržojna padina“ and “Progon“, as well as 5 interchanges at junctions with multiple levels.

The completion of the eastern leg of Corridor 10 construction, using the shortest route, connects Western and Eastern Europe, Serbia and Bulgaria, and foremost two large Serbian counties – the Niš county and the Pirot county, where approximately 450,000 people live.

Contemporary traffic infrastructure also validates the geostrategic position of Serbia as a whole and opens a path to the markets of Southeast Europe and Asia. High-quality and efficient connection of the Republic of Serbia with its surroundings, the neighboring countries most of all, and its active participation in integration processes of the West Balkans, Southeastern Europe and the Danube region is an imperative.

For more information, visit the website of Roads of Serbia: www.putevi-srbije.rs

by Mao Macatangay

Motorway "Milos the great" opened for traffic

The section of the motorway “Milos the Great” from Obrenovac to Ljig was opened for traffic in the second half of August 2019. Together with the previously opened section Ljig – Preljina, it creates a whole consisting of 103 kilometres of motorway E-763.

The characteristics of the section of the Motorway E-763, Belgrade-South Adriatic, Sector I: Belgrade – Ljig, section 3: Obrenovac-Ub from km  14+416.09 to km 40+645.28, section 4: Ub-Lajkovac, from 40+645.28 tо km 53+138.91  and section 5: Lajkovac – Ljig from км 53+138.91 to km 77+118.23.

The route of the Motorway E-763 represents a branch of the Transeuropean arterial road which, on the area of Serbia and Montenegro, connects its basic road route from Gdansk to Athens and from Istanbul to the Adriatic Sea and the harbour of Bar. On the area of Serbia it connects the most significant economic and social centres. The basic significance of this road on the territory of Serbia is that it valorizes the transit function of our country within the wider international corridor.

In the road network system of Serbia, this road, i.e. corridor, represents the basic link on the route north-south, connecting Vojvodina, Belgrade, western and central parts of Serbia and the area of south-western Serbia with Montenegro, the Adriatic Sea and the harbor of Bar.

The construction of the Motorway E-763, Belgrade – Požega, the section Lajkovac- Ljig and Ub – Lajkovac, together with the sections under construction (Surčin – Obrenovac) and already completed sections (Ub-Lajkovac 12.5 km and Ljig-Preljina, 40.3 km) has completed the profile of the Motorway from Belgrade to Preljina in the total length of 120 km (L=26.23км+12.5км+41.58+40.30=120.61km).

Motorway E-763, Belgrade – South Adriatic

Characteristics of the sections opened for traffic on 18.08.2019.

I Section: Obrenovac-Ub, in the total length of 26.23 km. The designed and constructed route of this section has been mainly placed on the alluvial plateaus of the rivers Kolubara, Tamnava and Ub as well as their tributaries, where it is  mostly constructed with embankments of changeable height, from 0.5-12.0m, and a shorter part includes inclined parts of the terrain where it is locally cut in to the depths of 0.5-20.0m. The total width of the motorway is 28.4m. The motorway is designed for the speed of V=130 km/h.

II Section: Ub-Lajkovac in the total length of 12.49km

The largest section of the route of the motorway goes  through the mildly corrugated relief of sediment formations through the course of the river Kladnica, the Ruklad stream and, finally, along the alluvial plateau of the river Kolubara. The total length of the motorway is 28.4m.

III Section: Lajkovac-Ljig in the total length of 23.98 km

The designed and constructed route of this section is mostly situated on the alluvial plateaus of the rivers Kolubara and Ljig as well as their tributaries, where it is mostly constructed with embankments of changeable height of 0.5-10m, and a shorter part includes inclined parts of the terrain where it is locally cut in to the depths of 0.5-27.0m. The total width of the motorway is 28.4m. The motorway is designed for the speed of V=130 km/h.

The total recapitulation of the Section Obrenovac-Ljig in the total length of 62.70km.

- 42 reinforced concrete bridges and overpasses, with the longest bridge in the length of 568m,

- 36 box culverts of 5m in width,

- 44 regulations of water flows in the total length of about 22km,

- 91 pipe culverts,

- 11 deviations of local roads,

- 2 rest areas with parking lots on both sides of the motorway,

- 4 toll stations – 1 frontal toll station and 3 lateral toll stations,

- 3 junctions – Junction Ub, Junction Lajkovac and Junction Ljig,

- 1 tunnel “Brančići“, whose average length (left and right tunnel tube) is 962.5m.

by Mao Macatangay

Compact equipment for heavy loads

The number of vehicles circulating in the world grows very fast and people spend longer periods in their vehicles. Assuming that time is money, the traffic congestion, allied to other facts like the continuous growth in the economy and trade, leads to a hard competitiveness in the transport sector. To be more competitive and increase their profits, many transportation companies and freelance truck drivers chose overloading, deteriorating therefore the road network and threating the security of other users. Additionally, overloaded vehicles can have their CO2 emissions increased in more than 70 per cent, contributing to worsen the air quality and its unavoidable consequences to the climate. In short, overloaded trucks are unfair competitors, potential accident-causing, road destroyers and environment unfriendly. In view of that it is absolutely necessary to enforce vehicle weight in order to reduce the number of overloaded trucks and to impede their circulation.

Mobile checks eliminate the risk of bypassing. Static weighing makes a social interaction between the officer and driver possible. Additionally, it avoids that the vehicle drives further and continues destroying the pavement. Nevertheless, it has a limiting factor:  it is required time to intercept the trucks and perform the weighing, restricting therefore the number of vehicles controlled. This can be improved by installing a WIM system to pre-select the supposed overloaded vehicles, which should be weighed further with a more accurate weighing system.

HAENNI Instruments, committed to provide the best solutions for the legal weight control, develops and manufactures portable wheel load scales making use of value engineering. Knowing that to perform the weight enforcement is itself a hard job, the engineers at the Swiss manufacturer aim to create robust and easy-to-handle products, to facilitate the patrol officers’ life.  All HAENNI scales weight less than 20 kg and are maximum 17 mm high. OIML, NIST and EU certified, they operate in a wide temperature range, from -20 to +60 °C. Most components and the scales themselves are manufactured in Switzerland, where each detail is carefully controlled by qualified employees, who have performed the same job over the years and are very proud of it.

In the coming months the Swiss company will launch the new processing unit EC 120, which could be used to display weights of HAENNI electronic wheel load scales, to save measurements and to print out reports. The device has an uncompromising operating time. To reach that it was chosen an energy saving technology and renounced to needless details like a color display. Nevertheless, value a simple operation has taken precedence. Inspired by modern operating systems for smartphones, the operation of the device is intuitive and does not require intensive training.

The new device will add a great value to the existing HAENNI mobile weighing systems and will reduce its set up time to a minimum. Used in combination with 2 portable scales with wireless function, the whole equipment fits in the trunk of a personal car and can be set up by one person in less than 2 minutes. Visit www.haenni-scales.com for more information.

by Mao Macatangay