Non-availability of skilled manpower is a challenge in faster adoption of digital technologies.

P. RAMESH, MD and CEO, Wirtgen India

The Wirtgen Group has been consistently developing products which offer better efficiency in terms of fuel consumption and this helps in sustainable development and less carbon emissions, lower life cycle costs and better productivity of these machines. P. Ramesh, MD and CEO, Wirtgen India talks about the advanced road construction technology solutions offered in India. Excerpts from the interview…

Could you brief us on the tech-enabled, smart solutions offered by your company in the roads and highways construction in India?

The Wirtgen Group has been continuously innovating its products and all our road technology brands - Wirtgen, VÖGELE and Hamm are not only global market leaders but also innovation leaders. The Wirtgen Group has been consistently developing products which offer better efficiency in terms of fuel consumption and this helps in sustainable development and less carbon emissions, lower life cycle costs and better productivity of these machines.

To start with we have introduced the cold milling and cold recycling and these two technologies are reasonably well accepted in the market. Soil stabilization is also becoming very popular and all these technologies result in saving resources, faster construction and cost economical solutions. The cement treated base or sub-base (CTB or CTSB) not only reduces aggregate requirement, but also ensures stronger foundation and reduces layers. The cold recycling reuses 100% of asphalt pavement material and only addition is bitumen 2-3% which rehabilitates the asphalt pavement to its original properties.

For concrete paving, the Wirtgen slip form pavers can now offer dual- layer concrete paving, where a single machine is used for dual layer concrete paving, the bottom layer and the top layer concrete are paved in a synchronized operation. It is additionally ensured that both the top and bottom layers are paved 'Wet-in-Wet' regardless of weather or site conditions. This can be done with single paver or with two pavers where it is necessary to distribute the operating weight to two separate machines.

In Asphalt paving - the VÖGELE -In Line Paving where the binder and surface courses are paved "hot on hot" in a single pass, greatly accelerating activities on a job site. In addition, it is not necessary to completely close down the road: the three machines - a paver for the binder course, a paver for the surface course and a material feeder - work "in line", one behind the other, leaving one lane open to traffic. An ideal solution for rehabilitation of heavily travelled roads. The process is both economical and highly eco-friendly, the layer thickness can be reduced in "hot on hot" paving, thus lowering consumption of the costly surface course mix.

VÖGELE also offers an innovative and economical solution for the road construction sector with the non-contacting road scan temperature measurement system. The scanning and documentation of the freshly paved asphalt's temperature is already specified in tenders in several markets, and in others there are definitive plans to implement this. After completion of the construction job, contractors can furnish detailed evidence that the temperature was maintained within the correct range using the recorded GPS data, including precise tracking.

What are the pain points in faster adoption of such smart and intelligent solutions by the project owners and executing agencies, and how do you address the same?

The challenges in adopting these technologies are the conservative mindset of the user industry. These technologies comes with little higher cost but in long they can be much more beneficial than one can imagine. Providing a varying range of data, improved worker safety, real-time reporting, continuous improvement, remote operation, keeping track of equipment, supplies and levels, equipment servicing and repair, remote usage monitoring, precise construction management, power and fuel savings, improved productivity are some of the benefits that a customer reap by adopting these digital technologies.

Another challenge in adoption of digital technologies is non-availability of skilled manpower.

Your outlook on future trends in road construction technologies, and your company's contributory role?

The Indian government is planning to increase the national highway network to 2,00,000 km by the year 2022. During the year 2018-19 national highways were constructed at the rate of 30 km per day, the government has set a target of constructing 40 km per day national highway in 2020. The NHAI has achieved a record 3979 km national highway construction during FY 2019-2020 over 3380 km national highway in FY 2018-19. The government is focussing to increase the road connectivity by increasing the length of national highway, expressway, economic corridors, industrial corridors, village roads (PMGSY) etc. The Indian government is also encouraging usage of innovative materials, automation and machine control technologies in the construction sector in order to improve efficiency and lower the impact on environment. The Indian government has allowed 100% FDI through automatic route subject to applicable laws and regulation. The future trend indicate that the road construction will increase in India and new technologies will be required to fulfil this need.

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