Tram plans being explored for West Yorkshire
The West Yorkshire Combined Authority (WYCA) has unveiled plans for two potential tram lines serving Leeds and Bradford in the UK. Proposals include a line from St James’ Hospital via the city centre and Elland Road to the White Rose Shopping Centre, with a second line linking Leeds and Bradford city centres. It is hoped that construction could start in 2028 using funding allocated to the region from the cancelled HS2 Birmingham-Manchester section. The next stage would be for the strategic outline case to be submitted to the Department for Transport, with a full public consultation on details of the routes if supported.
India gets first underwater train metro
India celebrated some new transportation infrastructure with the inauguration of its first underwater metro train service in Kolkata in March. The Indian Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi, opened new sections of four Indian metros mainly via video link as the made the official honour in Kolkata. The city has three new sections of metro, with the Prime Minister riding a 4.8km section of metro line 2 from Esplanade to Howrah Maidan developed by Mumbai-based construction company, Afcons, which is billed as India’s first underwater metro due to it crossing under the Hooghly river.
Image courtesy of Volkerfitzpatrick.
Further progress on Hornsea 3 project for Ørsted
Progress on Hornsea 3 is well underway, with the recent arrival of the first delivery of cables in February marking a significant milestone.
Meticulous planning has been undertaken to ensure the seamless transition of each drum to its designated position within the site yard, facilitating efficient transportation to the project site in the correct order.
Supported by VolkerStevin and VolkerTrenchless Solutions, the works are being carried out on behalf of Ørsted, a sustainable energy company.
The project includes the installation of 208km of onshore cables across a 52km long route, linking the offshore wind farm from its landfall at Weybourne in Norfolk to the Norwich main National Grid substation.
The project is due to be completed around spring 2026.
Image courtesy of NASA Earth Observatory. By Michala Garrison and Wanmei Liang, using data from DSCOVR EPIC and VIIRS data from NASA EOSDIS LANCE, GIBS/Worldview, and the Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS).
Total solar eclipse sees day turn to night
Millions of Americans saw day turn temporarily to night on 8 April as the Moon passed between the Sun and Earth to create a total solar eclipse. NASA’s EPIC (Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera) imager on the DSCOVR (Deep Space Climate Observatory) satellite, captured the views of Earth, with the Moon’s shadow passing over North America, from the Pacific coast of Mexico, and over to the Atlantic coast of Newfoundland, Canada.
Image courtesy of NZT Power.
Next phase of the Net Zero Teesside Power project agreed
Balfour Beatty, alongside Technip Energies and GE Vernova, has received a letter of intent from bp, on behalf of NZT Power Limited, to progress with the next phase of the Net Zero Teesside Power project.
The joint venture between bp and Equinor, is poised to become one of the world’s first commercial scale gas- fired power stations with carbon capture, expected to capture up to 2 million tonnes of CO2 per year.
The project is set to provide flexible, dispatchable low-carbon power equivalent to the average electricity requirements of around 1.3m UK homes.
Swiss Alps to be laser scanned by drones
A Swiss-Austrian consortium will test large-area laser scanning applications in the Swiss Alps, using drones. The partners, Dufour Aerospace, RIEGL, BSF Swissphoto and the SLF, will collaborate for a series of test flights over several months. This test series will demonstrate the efficiency of drone application with a view to a lower environmental impact and significant cost reductions.
These are expected to begin in Dübendorf, Switzerland, with basic functional tests and then extended to the Alpine region in the course of 2024 and 2025, depending on the results from each individual test series.
In brief:
- Paramount production clients will now have access to 3D digital scans of production facilities and locations on its iconic Hollywood studio lot, thanks to a deal with digital twin studio, Preevue. Providing point cloud and digital twin data, it will offer a tool for previsualisation and technical visualisation to enable filmmakers to explore and plan their work from anywhere in the world.
- Latvia has signed a contract with Dutch engineering company Van Oord to build one of the first offshore wind farms in the country.
- Woolpert, a private, US-based architecture, engineering, and geospatial firm, has acquired Ireland-based Murphy Geospatial, the geospatial solutions firm.
- Sensat, a collaboration and visualisation platform for civil infrastructure, has joined Ordnance Survey’s channel partner programme, to help redefine data utility for infrastructure projects in Great Britain. It will help to simplify and improve decision-making capabilities across various sectors, including energy, water, rail, highways, real estate and telecoms.
- A new Turing report 'Quinquennial review of The Alan Turing Institute' has outlined the importance of AI in supporting strategic decision-making on national security.
- The PlanTech Partnership led by FrontierSI with the Planning Institute of Australia, University of NSW and RMIT University has released two white papers calling for a coordinated approach to digitising and streamlining Australia’s urban planning systems to achieve climate resilience across the nation.