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Transport roundup

A consortium consisting of Van Oord, Royal Boskalis Westminster, NMDC (Abu Dhabi) and Jan de Nulhas has won a $1.5bn contract to expand the Suez Canal.  The project will widen the existing canal and deepen it to 24m. It will also create a 50km “dual carriageway” passage to enable ships to transit in both directions at the same time.  

The amount of time that commuters spend travelling to and from work has increased on average by almost 11 hours over the past five years, according to TUC analysis of official figures. For car users it is 7 hours more, for public transpot users it is 14 hours. The South East has seen the most dramatic annual increase – with commuters there facing an additional 20 hours to their journeys. The TUC believes that UK workers are spending far too much of their lives commuting – an average of nearly 211 hours per year, or the equivalent of more than a month’s full-time work.It wants more home working and flexi time to help workers and take pressure off public transport and the roads.