Robotic arms for tunnel-boring machines, concrete reinforcement made of old wind turbine blades and machine learning to reduce concrete waste are among innovations emerging from the $16.7-billion civil construction program for the U.K.’s London to Birmingham high-speed railroad. Construction began late last year.

Cross the finish line over two years late, the tunnel-boring machine Bertha completed it's 1.7-mile journey on April 4.

It took 80-ft-deep, dense soil for “Bertha,” the world’s largest-diameter tunnel-boring machine, to finally hit her stride.

Infrastructure planners and builders need to rethink how they approach and compute uncertainty and risk.