Hollywood Burbank Airport officials unable to determine impact of ride-sharing services
For the past two years, Hollywood Burbank Airport officials have been trying to figure out if the prevalence of ride-sharing services, such as Lyft and Uber, has had a negative impact on the airfield’s parking revenue.
Despite crunching numerous sets of data, David Kwon, the airport’s director of financial services, told the Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport Authority on Monday that there is no definitive conclusion that transportation-network companies are affecting parking and rental-car activity at Hollywood Burbank.
The airport had recently come off one of its better years, reporting more than 4.7 million passengers traveling through its terminals in 2017. However, parking revenue has remained relatively flat, even after the airport received additional funds from ride-sharing companies, which are charged each month for the number of times its drivers pick up or drop off passengers at Hollywood Burbank.
“Based off the data and from a demographic standpoint, we are noticing that [transportation-network company] activity is not necessarily taking away from parking and rental-car activities,” Kwon said. “The actual users of [transportation-network companies], parking [facilities] and rental cars may be different.”
Using passenger-survey data compiled by Phoenix Marketing, Kwon said there is a slight demographic shift in passengers. The data point to there being younger travelers who take more leisure trips rather than those who are older and go on business trips.
Kwon cautioned authority members about the data from Phoenix Marketing, saying he does not know when during 2017 the agency decided to conduct its survey. He added that airport officials could not get information from the airlines about their passenger demographics, which required them to use the information that Phoenix had compiled.
In addition to the passenger survey, airport staff used basic passenger information for 2016 and 2017 that was readily available, such as the number of passengers who boarded from Hollywood Burbank, travelers who had a transfer flight at the airport and those who deplaned at Hollywood Burbank.
Kwon said he and his staff also used the number of parking tickets redeemed during those years, the number of ride-sharing drop-offs and pick-ups and rental-car transactions.
Using a non-linear regression model which compares two sets of numbers, Kwon said there was a strong correlation between the number of people who deplane at the airport and the ride-sharing-services activity. He added that when the number of passengers who arrive at Hollywood Burbank increases, so, too, does the ride-sharing activity.
On the other hand, Kwon said there was still a moderate correlation between the number of arriving passengers and parking activity. Like the ride-sharing activity, there was a modest increase in those using the parking facilities when the number of passengers leaving the airport increases.
What airport staff and the authority were more curious about was how the ride-sharing services were affecting parking activity. Kwon said there is a weak correlation between the two, saying that as ride-sharing activity increases, parking activity decreases slightly.
Kwon said this phenomenon is probably due to the change in passenger demographics, in which younger passengers will tend to use a ride-sharing service over parking at the airport. Conversely, passengers in the older demographic who have always used the airport’s parking services will continue to do so.
anthonyclark.carpio@latimes.com
Twitter: @acocarpio
