Balfour Beatty has increased its presence in the UK Rail market by purchasing Omnicom Engineering.

The acquisition will expand Balfour Beatty's services for clients across the rail infrastructure lifecycle, from feasibility studies and planning through to design and implementation, maintenance and asset management.

Omnicom Engineering was founded in 1995 and specialises in the development of vehicle borne software and hardware platforms for asset survey, inspection and monitoring across the transportation sector.


Key specialities include video and laser surveys, as well as high-speed video inspection (OmniVision) which enables clients to replace manual track inspection with automated machine vision from a high speed vehicle.

Mark Bullock, Managing Director of Balfour Beatty's UK Rail business, said: "Omnicom Engineering is a true innovator which is benefiting from over twenty years of investment in research and development. We will leverage this expertise alongside the high speed laser measurement technology that already exists within Balfour Beatty, to provide unrivalled technical solutions to clients in the growing high-speed and unattended data collection market in which we see opportunities for increasing our business.

"Together, Omnicom and Balfour Beatty's range of asset management solutions will offer an unrivalled richness of information to support the maintenance of roads and railways across the world."

(LM/CD)