Brisbane City Airport Link

The $4.8 billion Airport Link project includes three separate projects – the Northern Busway, a 3km two-way dedicated busway, the Airport Roundabout Upgrade and Airport Link M7 (a 6.7km toll road including 5.2km of tunnel). Together, the projects reduce traffic congestion for the inner northern suburbs of Brisbane by 45%, fixing one of the state’s worst bottlenecks. Ground-breaking on so many levels, this project delivers an economic and social legacy for the broader Brisbane community. It redefines the urban fabric of the city through an innovative and inspired design.

The scale and complexity of the project, along with very tight constraints imposed by a highly populated environment and the need to keep roads open, presented a formidable design challenge.

To meet this challenge, Arup joined forces with Parsons Brinckerhoff as the PBA JV to build a team that drew on extensive skills and resources. Specialist design professionals were mobilized from around the world to form what became a highly effective delivery team. Over 1,000 PBA team members worked more than one million hours to design this project and provide construction phase support. Functioning as the backbone of Arup’s Sydney office, Latter Rain contributed over 6000 hours (>500 drawings) within very tight time constraints, working very long weeks for many, many months.