Miami International Airport now gets passengers from the runway to the roadway faster than ever before with the MIA Mover, a 1.25-mile-long automated people mover system between MIA and the Miami Rental Car Center that opened to the public on September 9.

More than 200 business and community leaders joined officials from Miami-Dade County, the Greater Miami Convention and Visitors Bureau (GMCVB), Parsons-Odebrecht Joint Venture (POJV), Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) and Sumitomo Corporation of America (SCOA) on September 8 for an inaugural celebration and preview of the MIA Mover before its public opening on September 9. 

With a top speed of 40 miles per hour, the MIA Mover has the capacity to transport more than 3,000 passengers per hour free of charge directly between MIA and the Rental Car Center’s customer service lobby just east of Le Jeune Road. MIA passengers simply exit their concourse and take elevators to MIA’s third level moving walkway, which quickly connects them to the MIA Mover.

Under a design-build contract, POJV constructed the MIA Mover guideway and stations and, through a subcontract with MHI, installed the full turnkey operating system that includes eight state-of-the-art Crystal Mover APM vehicles. Construction began in March 2009 and was completed within a budget of $270 million, with $170 million from the Miami-Dade Aviation Department’s Capital Improvement Program and $100 million from the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT).

The MIA Mover completely replaces the Rental Car Center shuttle bus service previously in operation, eliminating approximately 1,400 shuttle bus trips per day and reducing carbon emissions from MIA’s roadways by 30 percent. The MIA Mover’s MIA Station is also the first mass transit project in Miami-Dade County to be Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Gold-certified by the U.S. Green Building Council. The Rental Car Center, a 3.4-million-square-foot, four-level facility that houses 16 major rental car companies, was completed by the FDOT last July and serves an average of 16,000 airport customers daily.

“The MIA Mover is yet another successful milestone for Miami–Dade County, MIA, POJV, and its partners,” said Jose Abreu, Miami-Dade Aviation Department. “The movement of people is what we are all about, and today we are even closer to the day when the traveling public can move seamlessly among all forms of ground transportation, mass transit and air travel.”

The MIA Mover and Rental Car Center are two components of FDOT’s Miami Intermodal Center (MIC) project, slated for total completion in 2013. AirportLink, a 2.4-mile extension from the MIC to Miami-Dade Transit’s Metrorail system, is scheduled for completion next April. In 2013, the MIC’s 27-acre Miami Central Station is scheduled to open as Miami-Dade County's first ground transportation hub, providing passengers connections to services such as: Miami-Dade Transit’s Metrobus; Tri-Rail, a heavy-rail system that serves Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties; Amtrak; Greyhound; taxi and other forms of private transportation.