concessionaire

Transurban-Fluor's rebuild of 14 of the busiest miles of the Washington DC Capital Beltway must be one of the most difficult construction management jobs currently under way in the country. The joint venture toll concessionaire is rebuilding a 2x4 lane expressway into 2x 6 lanes, the extra two lanes each direction to be High Occupancy/or Toll (HOT) lanes with the traffic managed for free flow with dynamic pricing.

Jefferson County is looking for a developer/concessionaire to take on the first build of the Jefferson Parkway, another stage in the development of a belt route for the Denver metro area, and an important north south connector for the county. The Jefferson Parkway Public Highway Authority (JPPHA) has scheduled a "Bidders' Conference" in the county offices in Arvada CO, December 14.

Hanoi's Nhan Dan news agency reports that work just started on a 15.7km (10 mile) toll expressway project there under a build-operate-transfer contract - private enterprise financing the highway with the prospective toll revenues and raising the 2300b Vietnam Dong (VND) or $120m capital needed by a public offering. They expect

Australian/North American toller Transurban reported strong toll revenues and earnings in the second half of 2008 (2008H2) despite the economic slowdown. Toll revenues increased nearly ten percent from 2007H2 to US$524m/yr (A$416m for the six months with A$=63c, most subsequent numbers are A$). EBITDA was A$297m up 11.6% on the prior corresponding period (pcp) and cash flow rose 33% to A$138m, it  reported to the Australian Stock Exchange.

An announcement to the Australian Stock Exchange by Macquarie Infrastructure Group says a preliminary calculation puts their likely portfolio valuation of tollroads at $4.36b (A$6.5b) at the end of 2008 vs $5.74b (A$8.57b) mid-year. That's a decline of 24%.

MIG's announcement says:

The Indiana Toll Road Concession Company (ITRCC) has got a slew of bad press for offering politicians free i-Zoom transponders. i-Zoom is the local brandname for the transponders which are part of the interoperable E-ZPass system which now encompasses Illinois as well as that bunch of northeast and mid-Atlantic coast states.

Cintra the lead investors and the managers of the Chicago Skyway and Indiana Toll Road concessions are reporting a drop in US traffic - 5% on the Skyway and 2.3% on the ITR for October this year compared to Oct 2006.