More than 60 million people travel through Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) each year, making it the third busiest in the nation, fifth in the world. Improved air quality — the reduction of vehicle-generated pollutants and greenhouse gas emissions — is an objective that’s top of mind with LAX leadership today. The challenge? How to transport millions of people traveling through LAX while:• reining in traffic congestion, • curtailing harmful emissions, • reducing environmental impact on neighboring communities,• and assuring a quality experience for the traveling public

In response, LAX has mandated that all airport-franchised shared ride operators must convert from diesel power to clean-burning alternative fuel. This requirement includes a call for the consolidation of hotel courtesy buses into a single airport-run fleet. Every year, more than 2 million passengers make use of courtesy buses that were, until recently, operated individu-ally by nine major hotels that line the Century Boulevard gateway to LAX. In Phase I of the new hotel courtesy bus program, Destination Shuttle Services has contracted to consolidate passenger bus systems run by individual hotels into a single shared system that operates like a mini-city transit system. DSS CEO Jack Lott says, “Our idea is based on fewer tail-pipes traveling through the airport and using only vehicles that are powered by clean-burning compressed natural gas (CNG) fuel. We looked at all the alternative fuel options that were open to us, and determined that CNG is the proven solution for buses.”

To date, DSS has deployed a fleet of 19 brand new CNG courtesy buses to transport hotel guests to and from airline terminals, replacing 53 individual hotel vehicles in the process. “We provide airport/hotel bus service at no less than 15-minute intervals. During peak periods, our buses arrive every 5 to 7 minutes,” Lott explains. Each bus serves two hotels on the Century Blvd. corridor. In hotel lobbies, GPS-equipped kiosks visually show travelers the progress

of buses along their routes, with up-to-the-minute ETA’s prominently displayed. “We’re transporting 190,000 passengers a month during the first phase of this hotel consoli-dation effort,“ Lott reports. So far, the hotel bus consoli-dation program has reduced

vehicle trips through the central terminal area by 55 percent, and harmful emissions by 65 percent. “Already, we’ve taken tons of harmful emissions out of the air,” Lott says. Phase II of the consolidation program will broaden the program’s reach beyond the airport’s neighboring areas. Ultimately, all 46 hotels operating bus service to LAX ter-minals will rely exclusively on this new natural gas-powered transit fleet.

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LAXconsolidateshotelshuttleservice:deploysnaturalgastransitfleet.“Already, we’ve taken tons of harmful emissions out of the air.”