Design firm Arup confirms it has settled an estimated $1.7-billion lawsuit over alleged misleading traffic forecast models for a public-private airport road in Australia that went bankrupt in 2013. It won't disclose the pact amount or other details, but published reports estimate it is at least $80 million. The firm's Australian unit was sued in 2014 by PPB Advisory, a receiver firm set up following the failure of Brisbane's Airport Link Tunnel concession after one year of operation. According to court documents, traffic reached only 25% of what Arup forecast. The forecaster's defense in a trial that began last October collapsed within weeks after PPB's outside consultant said traffic forecast modeling approaches had "methodological errors and unreasonable assumptions" that inflated ridership numbers and were "implausible," noted the Australian Financial Review last month. Attorneys for PPB did not respond to ENR, but the Australian press account says Arup's lead forecaster acknowledged that some of the modeling was, as a PPB attorneyclaimed, "totally and utterly absurd."
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