About Straße und Autobahn

Straße und Autobahn

Straße und Autobahn is the German trade journal for road and bridge construction, road maintenance, planning, and operation, published monthly in Bonn by the Kirschbaum Verlag. Its media data for 2026 present it in its 77th volume, a continuity few German trade journals can match. Appearing since 1950 and now in its 77th volume, it is the official organ of the Forschungsgesellschaft für Straßen- und Verkehrswesen (FGSV) of Cologne, the Bundesvereinigung der Straßenbau- und Verkehrsingenieure (BSVI) of Munich, and the Austrian Forschungsgesellschaft Straße, Schiene, Verkehr (FSV) of Vienna, a trinational institutional anchoring unique among German construction journals. With ISSN 0039-2162 and IVW-audited circulation, it is the central specialist medium for the road construction profession in the German-speaking world, read wherever roads are planned, tendered, built, and maintained.

Overview

Straße und Autobahn appears monthly with twelve issues a year in DIN A4 format, published by the Kirschbaum Verlag GmbH, Postfach 21 02 09, 53157 Bonn, with the editorial and publishing offices at Siegfriedstr. 28, 53179 Bonn, reachable at info@kirschbaum.de. The annual subscription for 2025 costs 154.20 euros plus shipping; the single issue costs 18 euros, prices that reflect the journal's specialist B2B positioning and its value to professional subscribers. The media data for 2026 document a substantial editorial volume: 1,061 editorial pages, 89.01 percent of the total, against 131 advertising pages, of which 68 are external advertisements, 9 are job advertisements, and 54 are the publisher's own, plus 7 supplements. The content analysis breaks down the editorial matter: road construction technology at 30.78 percent, special market-and-practice features at 20.52 percent, technical regulations at 12.97 percent, road construction research at 12.06 percent, road planning at 10.82 percent, road operations at 10.37 percent, earthworks and foundation engineering at 10.15 percent, and further topics at 6.20 percent, a balance that shows the journal's dual character as technical journal and regulatory medium.

The readership is the road construction profession: engineers in road and bridge construction, road maintenance and operation, planning authorities at federal, state, and municipal level, research institutions, universities, and the construction industry, including the members of the three publishing societies. Each issue carries an editorial by a leading figure of the profession, from FGSV representatives to the president of the Federal Highway Authority (Fernstraßen-Bundesamt), as in the September 2024 editorial by President Doris Drescher, reflecting the journal's role as the profession's forum.

History

Straße und Autobahn has appeared since 1950 as the specialist journal for road and bridge construction, road maintenance, planning, and operation, published as the organ of the FGSV together with the BSVI and the Austrian FSV via the Kirschbaum Verlag of Bonn. Its sister journal Straßenverkehrstechnik has appeared since 1957 as the specialist journal for traffic planning, management, safety, and technology, and the two titles together cover the full spectrum of the road and transport profession, from the pavement to the traffic flow. The journal thus accompanied the entire postwar history of German road building: the reconstruction era, the autobahn expansion of the economic miracle years, the environmental turn in road planning, the infrastructure projects of reunification, and today's debates on maintenance backlogs, sustainable construction materials, and digital traffic management. Its archive is a chronicle of how Germany built, and maintains, one of the world's densest and most heavily used road networks.

The FGSV, the journal's principal publishing society, is the technical-scientific association for roads and transport, developing the technical regulations that govern German road construction. The BSVI, the federal association of road construction and transport engineers based in Munich, represents the profession's practitioners, and the Austrian FSV, the nonprofit technical-scientific association founded in 1952 with some 1,400 experts in its committees, develops the Austrian guidelines for roads and railways. The journal's 2026 editorials, signed by figures like Stefan Kübler and Knut Johannsen, continue the tradition of programmatic commentary on the profession's challenges, and the editorials of past years, from Martin Peck on asphalt to Stephan Krenz on traffic management, remain available as a public archive of the profession's thinking.

Coverage and Content

The journal covers road construction technology, from asphalt mixtures and aggregate to concrete pavements, asphalt mixing plants, and construction processes; road operations and winter services; earthworks, foundation, and underground engineering; road planning and route design; road construction research; and the technical regulations that form the profession's normative backbone. The 2017 editorial on asphalt mixing plants, for instance, addressed the need for sufficient plant numbers at favorable locations with operating permits that allow production outside usual working hours, so that construction sites can be served around the clock. The "Markt und Praxis" special features, at over a fifth of the editorial volume, address the industry's products and services, and "Straßenbautechnik aktuell" reports current developments in road construction technology, keeping practitioners abreast of what the market offers.

Recent editorials illustrate the agenda: the May 2025 editorial on reliable foundations for decision-making; the call to introduce new methods transparently, evaluate their practical suitability, and remove failed solutions from the regulations; and the economic damage of construction sites and traffic jams on inadequate road cross-sections, which cause considerable damage to the national economy through congestion. The journal thus serves both as a technical medium and as the profession's policy forum, where the people who write the regulations explain them and the people who apply them discuss their practical consequences.

Organization and Ownership

Straße und Autobahn is published by the Kirschbaum Verlag GmbH of Bonn, with the Forschungsgesellschaft für Straßen- und Verkehrswesen e. V. (FGSV) of Cologne as publisher (Herausgeber). The FGSV is one of the established organizations in the transport policy field, developing the technical regulations for German road construction through its committees. It is the joint organ of the FGSV, the BSVI of Munich, and the Austrian FSV of Vienna. The journal is a member of the IVW circulation audit, and its publisher and societies guarantee its distribution into the profession's core institutions. Financial details are not publicly confirmed.

Digital Presence

The journal's home is the Kirschbaum Verlag website, which presents the current issues, the editorials stretching back years as PDF downloads, and the media data. The February 2026 editorial by Knut Johannsen and the May 2025 editorial by Stefan Kübler are available online, continuing the journal's tradition of signed programmatic commentary that gives each issue its professional voice. The publisher's portal offers subscriptions and the digital edition, and the FGSV Verlag complements the journal with the technical regulations themselves. The FGSV's own publishing house and website complement the journal's digital presence with the technical regulations. Social media activity is not publicly confirmed in detail, and the journal's authority rests on its print and digital editions and its institutional role rather than on social reach.

The Road Builders' Journal

For 75 years, Straße und Autobahn has been the forum of the German road construction profession: the organ through which the FGSV, the BSVI, and the Austrian FSV speak to their engineers, and the medium that documents the technology, regulations, and politics of building Germany's roads, from the first postwar reconstruction to the digital autobahn. In its 77th volume, it remains the indispensable specialist medium for everyone who plans, builds, and maintains the country's streets and autobahns, from the municipal engineer to the federal authority.