Highways & Roads

The highways and roads market refers to the construction and maintenance of transportation infrastructure including highways, railroads, bridges and other road. The construction of roads and related infrastructure is a form of heavy construction that relies upon contracting services such as engineering, equipment, machinery and materials procurement and construction. Logistics, procurement and labor hiring are particularly demand projects for heavy construction projects for highways, roads and other transportation infrastructure that cover long distances and can be remotely located or otherwise sited in challenging environs.

Transportation infrastructure construction projects for highways, roads and similar thoroughfares are capital intensive and require machinery, industrial vehicles, mass amounts of building materials (asphalt, concrete, BST, rail ties, steel tracks), and are very fuel- and energy-consumptive projects.

While railroads, highways and roads have been undertaken by private sector companies and organizations, the sheer scale of highway and road construction project costs and project’s benefits to public welfare has led to the management and completion of highway, road and transportation infrastructure projects by government. Public sector and government projects benefit from tax-based funding and eminent domain rights that allow the seizure of private property with due compensation in order to ensure right-of-way (ROW) and completion of a highway, road or railroad project. Public policy is inevitably a major factor in highway and road construction projects. Highways and roads are highly beneficial to commerce, aid in economic growth in developing countries, and are determinative of regional, suburban, rural and urban development.