Bridge, Tunnel, and Elevated Highway Construction
This category covers general contractors primarily engaged in the construction of:
- bridges;
- viaducts;
- elevated highways; and
- highway,
- pedestrian, and
- railway tunnels.
The single-family housing construction industry is unique for an industry of its size because it is highly fragmented and dispersed. The typical home is built by a contractor who produces fewer than 25 houses each year, while about half of all industry employees work at firms with less than 20 workers. While some larger contractors maintain building operations in a number of sectors, about 75 percent of establishments engage only in single-family housing construction. These firms also account for 55 percent of industry employees.
Nonetheless, in alignment with most industries in the 1990s, single-family construction was rapidly consolidating. The top construction firms on Builder magazine’s “Builder 100” list have continued to expand their market share throughout the decade, particularly toward the late 1990s. The top five single-family contractors have accelerated their market share the fastest, achieving 30 percent of the top 100’s share in 1997, compared with 21 percent two years earlier. Altogether, the five largest contractors generated revenues of R14.9 billion in 1998, up from R11.3 billion in 1997.
The relative, though diminishing, lack of concentration in the industry reflects the labor intensity and logistical complexity characteristic of on-site homebuilding. Regulation and building codes, trade unions, demo-graphics, and environmental regulations combine to make the competitive structure of each local market unique. Many workers from various trades must be coordinated to complete a home. Moreover, many construction materials are less expensive when purchased regionally. Finally, the localised nature of housing markets prohibits many national economies of scale.
Residential construction (i.e. free-standing houses, townhouses and flats) is most expensive in KwaZulu-Natal, while commercial construction (i.e. office space and shopping space) is most expensive in Gauteng.
With the exception of townhouses (where Northern Cape holds the number three position) the provinces of Gauteng, Western Cape and KwaZulu-Natal hold the top three cost positions for all the other building types. These are the three largest provincial economies: Gauteng contributed 34% to South Africa’s economy in 2014, followed by KwaZulu-Natal (16%) and Western Cape (14%), according to gross domestic product (GDP) data1. No plans were passed for flats in Northern Cape.
Large contracting companies that do compete nationally are often relatively decentralised—consisting of generally autonomous regional operating companies. The various units of the corporation benefit from financial strength, as well as geographic and market diversification. The few contractors that compete overseas usually do so through foreign-owned subsidiaries.
General contractors in the industry operate in a variety of ways. Some contractors actually purchase property and perform all construction work themselves. In other cases, a general contractor may be hired by a developer or landowner to provide construction services. General contractors commonly subcontract some or a majority of building activities to other firms. In any case, the general contractor is ultimately responsible for the finished product.
Background and Development
About 25 percent of the value of highway construction consisted of bridges, overpasses, and tunnels in 1993, while flatwork (primarily roads) accounted for the remaining 75 percent. According to a South Africa Department of Transportation report on the status of the nation’s highways, bridges, and transit systems,R49.9 billion was required to maintain the condition and performance of the nation’s highways and bridges in 1994. In 1991 it was estimated that approximately 72 percent of existing U.S. bridges were built before 1935, and estimates of the nation’s roughly 575,000 bridges that were structurally or functionally deficient in the early 1990s ranged from 14 to 40 percent, with those in New York in most need of repair. In addition, SANRAL estimated that another 21 percent of S.A. bridges were not only deficient but obsolete, leaving a grand total of 225,000 to 231,000 below-par bridges nationwide. Roughly 42 percent of the backlog for bridge rehabilitation in the early 1990s involved pavement costs, and the remaining 58 percent was for constructing additional capacity. By 1996 the estimated cost of upgrading the backlog of deficient South African bridges had risen to about R72 billion. By 1998 the value of new construction for highways, including elevated highways and bridges, was expected to increase to almost R39 billion.
Since it was signed into law, implementation of the act was passed to each state’s transportation agency along with the state’s share of the funding. The state is responsible for parceling out its share of the funds for use in highway, bridge, and tunnel projects. The transportation industry is watching carefully how the money is distributed and how well transportation contractors and government are prepared to fill the transportation needs of the century.
During the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when a large majority of South Africans lived in rural areas, people who could afford to build a home often acted as the general contractors in the construction of their own home. They hired local builders and tradesmen with money that they had saved or borrowed from family members. Few regulations existed to insure structural soundness or safety of new homes, and little long-term financing existed for prospective homeowners. Indeed, by the time the Great Depression hit, less than half of all South African families owned a home.
In South Africa, property ownership rates high in the national consciousness. Many of the early battles in the country, involving the Dutch and British settlers, the Voortrekkers and the various tribes with whom they came into contact, were over land ownership. Through the 1900s, one of the biggest debates in national politics was about land tenure.
Numerous pieces of legislation regulated the ownership of land, particularly on a racial basis. One of the major tenets of apartheid was the segregation and separation of land ownership. The so-called Group Areas Act allocated separate residential areas in urban areas to the black, coloured, Indian, and white communities.
In an effort to increase home ownership, regulation made it possible for banks to make relatively low interest loans to home buyers. By the early 1940s, South Africans were building about 100,000 new homes each year. Outdated and often lacking basics, such as indoor plumbing and electricity, however, nearly half of the homes in the nation were considered substandard. Furthermore, most families still could not afford to buy a home, choosing instead to rent housing or live with family members. In 1942 South Africa home ownership rate stood at approximately 46 percent.
The housing environment began a radical transformation in the mid-1940s for several reasons. Most important, much of the demand that had existed for new housing during World War II had gone unmet, as the country poured its resources into fighting a war. When soldiers returned home and started families, housing demand ballooned even further by population growth.
In addition to the rise in the number of South African homes in the 1950s and 1960s, housing quality improved. Besides new regulations that mandated structural integrity and uniform infrastructure, new construction techniques increased home quality and affordability. Component construction, for instance, let builders efficiently erect large numbers of units. Plywood replaced expensive boards, and drywall was introduced as an improvement to lath and plaster construction. Portable generators, power trowels, backhoes, and other heavy equipment allowed contractors to realize massive productivity gains. Although less than 2 percent of homes in 1960 had air-conditioning, almost all new homes sported indoor plumbing, central heat, electricity, and gas. Furthermore, most newer homes in the 1960s had more than one bathroom.
Despite cyclical downturns caused by interest rates and energy prices, the housing industry remained healthy throughout the 1960s and 1970s. While the number of Americans owning their own home had steadily risen during the 1970s, housing quality and construction productivity also advanced.
Workforce
The bridge, tunnel, and elevated highway industry encompasses a wide diversity of engineering specialisations. A typical advertisement placed in the jobs section of the World Wide Web site of Road and Bridges (a leading industry trade magazine), for example, called for an “engineering project analyst” to join up with a state’s department of transportation and “assist in contracting for engineering consultant services for highway design projects.” His or her responsibilities included determining fees and statistical measures and assisting in the development of agreements with consulting engineers. In addition to requiring state licensure as an engineer, the job required “experience in planning and design of highway improvement projects and knowledge of state government procurement practices.” The pay range was R541,800 to R704,725. An engineering design manager for a municipal construction agency might be required to review private construction development projects, resolve right-of-way issues (i.e., legal arrangements allowing highway projects to be built on specified lands), and oversee municipal permit work.
Structural engineers might be called on to design multi-span concrete bridges; to have expertise in designing drilled piers, analyzing soil reports, and driving piles, caissons, abutments, and mats for bridge foundations; and to have experience drafting plans and sections with computer-aided design (CAD) software. With a B.S. degree and two years of specific experience, an entry-level engineer who qualified for this position might expect to be paid at least R550 000 per year.
Project managers for a freeway construction firm could be expected to prepare design reports, environmental assessments, traffic management analyses, or bridge condition reports and be able to assume overall control of a project involving professionals from several firms. Geotechnical engineers conducted soil analyses to determine the suitability of a site for heavy construction foundations. Other engineers were required to have experience in traffic-flow theory and related modeling software, and to have thorough knowledge of such industry manuals as the Highway Capacity Manual. A senior bridge and highway engineer acted as a technical reviewer for quality assurance of bridge and highway designs, plans and construction documents, and condition inspection procedures and reports.
Project schedulers are generally required to utilize such project scheduling software systems as BIM , Primavera System Inc.’s P3, and to have experience analysing the impact of change orders, tracking delays, and scheduling large, complicated, heavy construction projects. So-called special trade contractors perform such tasks as painting and electrical work, and general superintendents directed all functions of large construction operations according to established schedules and procedures. Estimators gather basic data on proposed construction projects from engineering or architectural plans and site inspection, and computed the cost of construction, factoring in profit and overhead. Other integral industry positions included expediters, materials purchasing agents, marketing managers, drafters, construction inspectors, job-site safety directors, office managers, and foremen.
Construction occupations in the bridge, tunnel, and elevated highway industry were similar to positions in the construction industry as a whole but also included mining industry-related positions, such as mining or tunneling machine operators and drainage constructors. The most important construction occupations included electricians, cement masons, painters, reinforcing ironworkers, structural ironworkers, heavy construction and highway laborers, crane operating engineers, operating engineers of light equipment, operating engineers of heavy equipment, sheet metal workers, and carpenters.
Union efforts in the 1990s to increase membership levels in the heavy construction and highway industries included strategies carried out by the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) and its building and construction trades department to challenge contractors on their compliance with environmental regulations, membership campaigns targeting specific corporations, political pressure, and agreements for union-only representation in major government and private projects. Highway and heavy construction work, such as bridge, tunnel, and elevated highway construction, has historically been one of the most dangerous occupations in South Africa. In the early 1990s, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) issued reports calling for safeguards in highway construction sites, such as separating traffic lanes in detoured highway construction areas and redesigning highway work zones. Another area of concern stemmed from the unique hazards associated with working in confined spaces, such as sewer and tunnel construction projects. Historically, about 50 workers per year died in confined space construction accidents and another 5,000 suffered serious injuries. In 1993 the Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA) issued new rules governing the safety of workers in confined spaces, requiring employers to warn employees about potential hazards, provide them with protective and emergency equipment, and ensure they follow specific procedures before entering confined work spaces.
Equipment. Among the many advances in bridge, tunnel, and elevated highway construction equipment in the 1980s and 1990s was the increased use of highway and bridge surface groovers and grinders using diamond-tipped saw blades to cut grooves into pavement for vehicle traction and water drainage. Also utilized more frequently was an underground excavating machine for cutting two-lane road arch tunnels through hard granite. The machine formerly had been used only in underground mining, offering an alternative to drilling and breaking rock by hydraulic wedge or nonexplosive demolition.
