R. J. Mair – författare

The International Conference on Smart Infrastructure and Construction (ICSIC) brings together world-leading academics and practitioners from the fields of infrastructure planning, asset management and sensing.Transforming the Future of Infrastructure through Smarter Information covers a wide range of topics of relevance to smart infrastructure and construction, attracting papers from academics and professionals working to develop smart solutions for design, delivery, operation and management of major infrastructure assets.The papers published in the Proceedings reflect the themes of the conference, which include:sensors and data analysisasset managementcities and urban infrastructure.Smart infrastructure and construction is an emerging field of great potential, and Transforming the Future of Infrastructure through Smarter Information will be of interest to practitioners, asset owners and operators, consultants, contractors and academics with an interest in the area.

It is now more than twenty years since a proposal was first mooted to hold an international tunnelling symposium in Britain. At the time of the first symposium, held in London in 1976, the Channel Tunnel pro­ ject had just been shelved. Last weekend a charity walk was held in the finished tunnel, which will be open for business later in the year. Tunnels have figured prominently, and at times spectacularly, in the development of national and international links and it is hoped that such links gather pace in the future. It is particularly pleasing that Alastair Biggart of Storebrelt has agreed to deliver the twenty-sixth Sir Julius Wernher Memorial Lecture of the Institution of Mining and Metallurgy, entitled 'The changing face of tunnelling', at the start of this event. * Although almost every edition of the technical journals on tunnelling reports another £1 billion scheme somewhere in the world, it would be unfair of me to suggest that tunnelling is restricted to these prestigious schemes for major transport links. Much of the work that makes mod­ ern life possible receives hardly a mention outside the technical press and one suspects that society at large applies the 'out of sight, out of mind' attitude even more readily to underground construction than it does to other forms of engineering. Clearly, there is a contiiming need to improve the capacity and performance of our infrastructure, while hav­ ing a careful regard for the environment.