One Roof, One Ride: Reinventing Rental Car Travel at LAX

Los Angeles World Airports (LAWA) set out to modernize LAX’s rental car services as part of the larger Landside Access Modernization Program (LAMP) by merging multiple scattered rental car operations into a single, 70-acre hub which will be connected directly to the airport’s new Automated People Mover (APM) system.

Nestled at the APM terminus and just a short distance from SoFi Stadium, a central venue for the 2028 Olympics, this project’s strategic location required managing high-volume traffic and addressing airport site constraints. Kimley-Horn served as the engineer of record for the LAX Consolidated Rent-A-Car (ConRAC) Facility, leading civil and traffic engineering on a tight timeline.

Project Recognition

• 2026 American Council of Engineering Companies California Merit Award
• US Green Building Council (USGBC) Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Gold Accreditation
• 2023 USGBC Los Angeles Energy and Operational Carbon Design Merit Award

Transportation Engineering for a Modern Airport Rental Car Facility

With more than 3,000 rental car shuttle trips to pick up and drop off passengers at the LAX airport every day, the ConRAC Facility is a key component to streamlining traffic flow and reducing vehicle emissions. In addition to prioritizing efficient site circulation, the facility design needed to support a world-class multi-story fueling facility and provide material storage, trash compactors, and advanced systems to separate rainwater from maintenance cleaning and dry weather flows. Emergency egress in a record-breaking concrete structure, high-volume vehicle movements, and integration with the APM added further complexity—which the team navigated with flexible solutions.

Kimley-Horn led civil engineering for the ConRAC, providing construction phase support for the facility and its customer service building, APM station access, roadways and ramps serving employee and visitor parking areas, three levels of ready/return spaces, quick-turnaround and vehicle storage areas, and ground-level bus plaza. Our scope also included the following:

• Site development
• Transportation planning
• Traffic engineering
• Roadway improvements
• Circulation planning
• Lighting design
• Utility design
• Public and non-public area planning

Through iterative traffic modeling and outside-the-box coordination with the design-builder, Kimley-Horn helped shape a site circulation plan that reduced costs while improving the user experience. The team evaluated multiple access and ramping scenarios and designed a circulation approach that supported straight speed ramps instead of more costly and less desirable helical ramps, improving navigation for customers and operators within the constrained 70-acre site.

We also helped replace a proposed overpass with an at-grade intersection solution, a major value-engineering decision that helped keep the project feasible within the available budget. Working with the design-builder and authorities having jurisdiction, the team further refined the pavement design for adjacent streets: reducing pavement sections where traffic assumptions and neighboring project improvements supported the change and lowering construction quantities without compromising performance or agency requirements.

Managing Complex Airport Infrastructure with Stakeholder Coordination

While keeping the ConRAC project on schedule, the team also helped LAWA plan for interim operations, coordinating access, circulation, signage, and other make-ready measures so the facility could support travelers in 2024 while adjacent improvements continued to come online. This flexible approach reflected the partnership built over years of weekly coordination meetings and helped bridge the gap between construction delivery and operational readiness.

Additionally, the expansive projects had various teams participating in actions and decision making. Our team coordinated design packages and permitting across more than 15 agencies and utility providers, including the Los Angeles Department of Transportation, Caltrans District 7, LA Metro, Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, LA County Flood Control, City of Los Angeles Bureau of Engineering, City of Los Angeles Building and Safety, and City of Inglewood to keep the project moving cohesively alongside LAWA’s broader airport modernization.

A Sustainable Model for the Future

Kimley-Horn adapted a variety of infrastructure to align with the project’s extensive sustainability strategy. This included solar panel canopies in visitor parking and traffic circulation requirements which work alongside the building-integrated arrays to generate more than 8,000 megawatts of clean energy annually. These project aspects both contributed to LEED Gold achievement and reduced operational greenhouse gas emissions.

Beneath the surface, we also designed an integrated collection, storage, and diversion system for on-site runoff to maximize groundwater recharge and minimize pollutant impacts to the Santa Monica Bay. The system includes inlets and collection pipes, hydraulic diversion structures, large-diameter storage pipes, and dry wells extending more than 55 feet below grade, with modeled capacity to recharge roughly 1.7 million gallons of surface runoff every five days.

Ultimately, the LAX ConRAC facility transformed airport rental car operations by uniting fragmented operations under one roof, eliminating repetitive shuttle trips and easing airport congestion. Its award-winning design, such as innovative stormwater and solar systems, both prove and promote LAWA’s vision for smarter, more sustainable airport infrastructure.