"Shared van" experiences from Lax.?

Question

Last year, I used one of the "shared van" means of transport to get to my hotel situtated about 15 minutes from Lax airport. I got dropped off first as the distance was so short.
This year I used the same service, at the same time, to the same hotel but it took three times as long.
I believe the driver went way out of his way thru subrubs and back roads and got somewhat lost. When I was finally dropped off, he said the whole delay was due to traffic but we were moving all the time. Do they usually go to the furthest place first? I got the metro service back to Lax at end of stay, saved a lot of money and it all went very well.

Answer 1

I've used the shared van many times to and from LAX, and it's really been a mixed bag. The drivers will typically drop off the nearest person first and pickup the farthest person first. However, it sometimes takes incredibly long, even if you're not going far. In your case, there may really have been traffic. You were probably moving the whole time because the driver took side streets to avoid the heavy traffic on the major streets. The truth is that the traffic on Los Angeles's west side can be awful for most of the day, and it really could take 45 minutes to go just a few miles.

After taking the vans for a while, I've decided not to take them anymore if I can help it. They're expensive and just not worth it.

Answer 2

I belive to save on traffic into the airrport
Lax and several of the hotels along Century blvd have combines
their shuttles so one shuttle bus would service several hotels
(I'm assuming you were using one of those free shuttles, not
a commerical service like supershuttle or primetime vans services
if you were then I think you should have complained..
like I took a supershuttle from Lax to Mar Vista
we had 3 passenegrers , one to marina dey rey, one to Mar Vista
and one to Brentwood, of course we dropped Marina dey rey first
then me ..

Answer 3

I would recommend just planning to use the MTA or Flyaway systems when getting to/from LAX it may take a bit longer but it's predicable and costs a lot less.