Start counting down, but don't hold your breath: LAX is getting an 'automated people-mover' which will not only whisk travellers between terminals but to parking stations and even connect to the Los Angeles metro, if that's your thing.

Costed at US$4.9 billion, the long-awaited transit project is expected to be operating by early 2023.

The driverless carriages will run on rubber wheels set into a guideway channel, rather than light rail train tracks – similar to Singapore's Changi Airport Skytrain.

They'll scoot along an elevated track snaking down the middle of the Los Angeles airport precinct.

This track will run down the middle of the 'horseshoe' formed by the U-shaped arrangement of LAX terminals, with covered walkways connecting the stations to the terminals.

There'll be three stops at the airport proper: one serving TBIT, T3 and T4; a second for T2, T5/T6; and another for T1 and T7/T8.

Next along the route will be a station at the Intermodel Transport Facility (ITF) West; another across Aviation Boulevard at ITF East which will also connect to a new station on the Metro light rail system; and a final stop at a Consolidated Rent-a-Car Centre.

(Sorry, there's no stop at In-N-Out).

The ITF stops will serve as ground transportation hubs where travellers can be picked up by a friend or a ride-share driver, or hop onto a bus to nearby hotels, parking lots or downtown LA.

The trains are promised to run every two minutes, 24 hours a day.

LAX operating authority Los Angeles World Airports sees the shuttle as a vital piece of infrastructure in the lead-up to the city hosting the 2028 Olympic Games by "removing the frustration of the tangled traffic inside the horseshoe."