VINCI Concessions, Eurovia Ltd and Ringway Hounslow Highways work in partnership to improve and carry out routine maintenance on the streets for the London Borough of Hounslow. At the start of the contract, the company’s contractual limits and obligations were not well understood by the stakeholders (municipal councillors, local residents, local companies, etc.), which rapidly led to tense relations with them. Read more...
In 2011, the UK government launched the Government Construction Strategy, a huge healthcare facility programme. The strategy targeted a 14.1% capital cost reduction in the delivery of public projects compared to the current standards over five years – an ambitious target given the design constraints for hospital equipment and the numerous complex technical and functional specifications to be met . Achieving this goal was a crucial requirement for the healthcare sector to secure continued Government funding. Read more...
When building masonry, bricklayers bend over 1000 to 2000 times a day to scoop up mortar from a plywood spot board. The board typically rests on a stack of the bricks being laid. This repetitive movement has hardly changed since the invention of brick construction itself. Not only does it usually result in damage to the supporting bricks, leading to waste, but it is also the cause of many muscular-skeletal disorders (MSD) – virtually all bricklayers suffer from back problems at some point in their career. Read more...
The Ignalina nuclear power station in Lithuania commissioned a consortium led by Nukem GmbH to design and build a storage installation for spent fuel alongside the existing storage pools. Nuvia (VINCI Construction) was contracted to design, supply, install and test equipment for the remote handling of highly radioactive spent nuclear fuel. This equipment, without precedent in Lithuania, had to meet the highest nuclear quality standards. Read more...
Unauthorised use of machines and equipment on site can pose a real risk to the safety of everyone on site. At the moment, the trained and authorised operatives will hold a valid qualification for the... Read more...
On every site there is a danger of entrapment or crushing of the operatives when working at height with boom-type MEWPs. This is a key safety risk across the Tideway alliance which can result in... Read more...
Following numerous accidents, the City of London decided, in 2014, to improve the safety of the 4.5 km of cycle lanes it had built four years earlier. This required providing total physical separation from the lanes used by motor vehicles. To ensure better integration in the public space, the client wanted the lane dividers to be in high-quality granite. However, constructing this type of very heavy physical divider would have meant encroaching on the live traffic lanes resulting in significant delays. Digging operations were also difficult due to the presence of underground structures such as tunnels very close to the surface (only 15 cm down in some places). Read more...
On a worksite, the physiological effects of fatigue reduce workers’ vigilance and speed of reaction, in the same way as consumption of alcohol and drugs would do. However, unlike the latter, it is virtually impossible to detect but can be a cause of accidents particularly in the case of drivers of trucks or heavy worksite machinery. What’s more, its effects on worksite safety are little- known and underestimated. Read more...
Since 2007, VINCI Facilities has been responsible for the management and upkeep of the Royal Parks, located throughout Central and Greater London. The specifications of the new contract, won in 2016 as part of a new call for tender, includes maintenance and monitoring of the Longford River, a 17km manmade waterway. Since the river is prone to overflowing during heavy rainfall, innovative new solutions guaranteeing excellent quality of service had to be put in place. Read more...
Natural erosion caused by river currents can cause major damage to the piles and abutment piers of bridges built entirely or partly in the water, and can even destroy the structure. Anti-scouring protection is often used to prevent this phenomenon occurring, but most methods call on very onerous techniques (steel sheet piling, for instance), which require heavy equipment and wide access paths. Read more...