Travelers, shuttle operators struggle with strictures.

Travelers, shuttle operators struggle with strictures

Airport restricts passenger van access to cut congestion 

You've just landed at Los Angeles International Airport after a 12-hour flight from Tokyo. You're tired and cranky and want to get home to Glendale to take a warm shower and go to bed. You walk out of the terminal and are immediately confronted with the city's airport shuttle system.

To anyone unfamiliar with the system, or a stranger to Los Angeles, it can be a disconcerting experience: Throngs of people stand at curbside with bewildered and harried looks, waiting for vans to take them and their luggage home. Vans from 30 different companies go by with drivers shouting out destinations and dispatchers corral people into vehicles heading in every which direction.

Anyone who has used shuttle services has probably had such an experience. But according to shuttle operators, the system is getting better.

Since Aug. 1 the number of vans allowed to make pick-ups along the circular arrivals area at LAX has been restricted. And since the beginning of the year, vans are being charged for the amount of time they spend on the circuit looking for passengers.

That's the good news. The bad news is that a moratorium on new operators getting access to the airport has been lifted. That means once again the floodgates are open to an influx of new operators, some of whom may not be fit to offer public transportation.

Largely because of the lack of public transportation, shuttle van service is the primary source of airport transportation for a good portion of Los Angeles County travelers. And it's a relatively new service.

Prior to 1984, shuttle van service didn't exist in Los Angeles. Today it is a $60 million (in sales) a year industry.

It started as the city and Los Angeles International were getting ready to host the Summer Olympics and an unprecedented number of visitors. Entrepreneur Mitchell Rouse saw an opening and, unnoticed by city and airport officials, quietly began operating a van service into LAX. Thus a new industry was born.

The company is now called Super Shuttle, the largest of the services with a 42 percent market share. Today there are about 30 companies offering shuttle service into Los Angeles International and five that sell transportation into the Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport.

Largely because of its volume of airline passengers -- about 45 million a year -- most of the attention to shuttle service involves transportation to and from LAX. At Burbank airport there are between 3.5 million and 4 million yearly passengers and the shuttle service, which only began a few years ago, runs pretty smoothly.

But at Burbank, the airport authority is considering a new electronic monitoring system to track the time vans spend in the airport terminal area. Fees are collected from the vans for the amount of time they spend in the terminal areas at both Burbank airport and LAX.

Earlier this year, vans at LAX began carrying transponders that allow airport officials to track how long the vehicles spend on the arrivals circuit looking for passengers. Another change occurred on Aug. 1 when vans were not allowed out onto the circuit from a staging area without a confirmed passenger reservation.

John Kindt, president of Prime Ticket, the second-largest van service with an 18 percent market share, said the changes have helped but there are still problems at LAX.

"The system has been chaotic in the past. It used to be the vans were like sharks in a feeding frenzy," he said. "It's gotten better but I have to say that I think the industry has not been helped as much as we should have. Government officials talk a lot about ride sharing and less traffic but they have done very little to actually promote it, as in our industry."

Kindt said one scam has already popped up since Aug. 1: Drivers are using fake passenger reservations to get access to the arrivals circuit. Under the new rules, vans at LAX are supposed to remain in a staging area until a dispatcher releases them when a passenger calls. The staging area is operated by a consortium of shuttle operators.

Access to LAX has always been controversial. All a van needs to operate there is proper insurance, a license from the state Public Utilities Commission and permission from the airport board of commissioners. In return, LAX collects small fees from the companies based on the time they spend on the arrivals circuit.

Airport police can issue tickets to drivers for operating unsafe vans but the companies themselves are responsible for monitoring the performance of their drivers.

Dave Manfull, general manager of Airport Flyer Express, a shuttle service that has been in business for five years and carries about 7,250 passengers a month, said the situation has become too controlled.

"There are too many people telling the drivers where to go and how long they can stay there and where they can stop and where they can't stop. There are too many people trying to control the vans," he said.

"This is free enterprise at its best," Manfull added. "And when you think that we are providing ride sharing and taking traffic off the streets, I would think we would get more support."