PAVING THE WAY TO SUCCESS

With roads and other infrastructure projects are being executed with quality in mind, asphalt plants and asphalt pavers are the two major plant and equipment categories where innovations are happening in spite of the current market related issues.

The primary use of asphalt is in road construction, where it is used as the glue or binder mixed with aggregate particles to create asphalt concrete. The largest use of asphalt is for making asphalt concrete for road surfaces.

In India, roads and highways has been the prominent sector where asphalt is being used and India continues to be a country most of whose main roads are made of asphalt. India has the second-largest road network in the world, spanning a total of 5.89 million km. Highway construction in India increased at 17% CAGR between FY16-FY21. Despite pandemic and lockdown, India has constructed 13,298 km of highways in FY21. Roads and highways sector is continued to be the key demand driver for asphalt plants and asphalt pavers in India. The Bharatmala Pariyojana scheme is going to be a major demand driver for the asphalt plants and pavers in the country.

Also, ports and airports infrastructure projects have been evolved in the country over the years with many Greenfield and brownfield projects in airports and ports in the country. Asphalt is used in such projects in airport runways and port-side infrastructure for cargo and container handling. The Airports Authority of India (AAI) is investing $3.3 billion (Rs 250 billion) to expand existing airports in the country and modernise them over the next four to five years. This will enable the creation of new terminals, as well as the expansion and overhaul of existing terminals. It will also support the expansion or revamp of aprons, runways, control towers and airport navigation services. Asphalt plants and pavers will be the crucial players in these projects.

Asphalt plants market

The market for asphalt plants is growing consistently for the past many years from the improved demand for good quality asphalt in roads and highway projects in the country. With projects are growing bigger, there is an increased requirement for advanced bigger capacity plants. On this trend, Paresh Patel, Director – Global Sales, Alltech Industries India, says, “We have geared up in advanced plants as we had acted on this surge in demand by starting the manufacturing of high-end 200, 240 TPH asphalt batch mix plants, which will cater the road construction companies to produce large quantity of hot mix in minimum time.”

Use of reclaimed asphalt pavements (RAP) is fast catching up momentum considering the depleting natural resources and the growing demand for green solutions. According to Patel, “As we envision about the future technologies to cater the needs of road contractors in India, we provide system to add up to 30% RAP directly into the mixer. We have also designed provision to add a total of 50% RAP (including aggregates and asphalt) to the asphalt plant.”

Trends in asphalt pavers

The Asia-Pacific asphalt pavers market is projected to grow with a CAGR of more than 4% during the period of 2022-27. Owing to the increased spending by governments for high quality roads and highways for swift movement of goods and passengers even from the remote locations to all major cities all around the world to enhance the quality and stretch of road and highways, smart city initiatives are creating demand for asphalt pavers. The increased demand for road traffic will require the continued construction and improvement of roads in both urban and rural areas and will likely drive the demand in global market. Vishwesh Rai, National Sales Manager, Dynapac Road Construction Equipment, elaborates on the growth trend of asphalt pavers in the country, “Accelerated spending by governments for more and more better roads and highways for rapid movement of products and passengers even from the remote places to major cities all around the world to enhance the quality and stretch of road & highways, and smart city initiatives are creating demand for asphalt pavers. Increased road construction projects lead us to forecast the demand of asphalt pavers and accordingly we try to fulfill the need of our customers.”

As more large roads and infrastructure projects are being executed in the country, the asphalt paver manufacturers are upgrading the products with advanced technologies and solutions to meet the emerging demands. For instance, Dynapac always prioritises customer satisfaction and success,  according to Rai. “One of the best ways of achieving this is by focusing on operational efficiency and productivity. Dynapac’s latest SD range of pavers has succeeded in this matter. Dynapac offers paver models SD2500C, SD2530CS and SD2550CS pavers with new features and packages are to support efficient operation, increase operator’s comfort and create a safer working environment for the operator,” he adds.

The smart solutions of digital innovations and intelligent paving technologies are gaining traction in paver market. According to Rai, “All SD range of pavers is equipped with Dyn@link advance (telematic system) for optimisation of paving parameters as well as timely maintenance. Dyn@link also enables fuel consumption track record, service alerts, geofencing, engine parameters, etc. that will save money as well as offer high machine uptime.”

“As we are running against time, it is a demand of time that we need innovations for speedy & quality road construction, and we are abided by one single rule i.e., ‘Your Partner on the road ahead’. Whatever be the challenge, we are always ready with the solution, Rai adds.

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