***

In a letter to the city agency that runs LAX, Uber’s security team said it was concerned that the system would not have a test run before the formal launch date. Similar changes this summer at the San Francisco airport sparked weeks of chaos.

***

The pickup lot will have 37 assigned spaces for Uber, which is not enough to satisfy rider demand, the company said in the Oct. 2 letter. Drivers for Uber pick up an average of 500 riders per hour at LAX, and during the busiest parts of the week, that number more than doubles, the company said. “Without a significant expansion of the lot, we expect the level of service to be poor,” the Uber letter said. The expansion would need to include at least twice as much space, the company said, with more space for pickups, more curb area for passengers to wait, and more road capacity for cars to enter and exit. The five loading bays where drivers will pick up riders will narrow to two exit lanes, which could “cause a bottleneck, risking gridlock during peak periods,” Uber wrote. That problem could be “further compounded” by shuttle buses to the terminals that will pass by every 45 seconds or so, the company said.

***

Uber officials toured the waiting area last month and came away concerned that the design provided “insufficient covering from sunlight, heat and rain” for hundreds of people who could be waiting for rides, they said. The changes could lead to “unintended consequences,” Uber said, including passengers circumventing the pickup lot by walking to nearby streets or hotels to call rides. The sidewalks out of the airport aren’t wide enough to accommodate a “large volume of riders seeking alternate pickup points,” the letter said.

***