Los Angeles World Airports announced Friday a 15% increase to its LAX-it shuttle fleet to speed up wait times for people traveling from a terminal and getting picked up at the airport by a taxi or ride-hailing service.
Airport officials said the average shuttle wait time at terminals Thursday was two minutes and the average time to the LAX-it lot on a the shuttle was 11 minutes, but the first couple of days since launching Tuesday saw much longer wait times during peak hours, roughly between 7 p.m. and 10 p.m.
The shuttle fleet is now 35, up from 29 when it began.
With the additional shuttles, wait times are expected to decrease ever further, LAWA officials said. The LAX-it system will also reroute shuttles to different terminals at different times to account for traffic volumes.
LAX-it has already resulted in a dramatic decrease in traffic in the Central Terminal Area, officials said, which has removed 14,795 cars on average daily, or a 15.3% reduction overall, according to LAWA, and it has also increased vehicle speed on the upper level on average by 34% per day and on the lower level by 6% per day.
As the weekend approaches, due to higher volumes of travelers, LAWA officials said guests should expect longer wait times once in the LAX-it lot to connect with drivers.
LAX-it is a designated parking lot where people can be picked up by a ride-hailing service or taxi, but those same services cannot drop passengers off in the terminals anymore due to heavy traffic that's been piling up in the CTA during major construction projects.
