I love the concept and the renders, but I wonder... is the spatial optimization really what's holding train travel back? If you decrease passenger density in order to increase privacy and comfort, do you then have a corresponding increase in ticket prices?
In places with good train travel, it seems like they already have several cabin classes, from sardine seats (still luxurious compared to air travel) to private cabins (at several multipliers of price). Pod style rooms would presumably be cheaper than that, but still a lot more expensive than a seat?
Then in places without high speed passenger rail, like the US, this wouldn't really be able to address the major problems with train travel (slowness, lower priority than freight, low reliability, etc.).
Under what scenarios would using pods instead of cabins be more economically viable? And could these be retrofitted into existing sleeper cars, or would they have to build entirely new trains?
In places with good train travel, it seems like they already have several cabin classes, from sardine seats (still luxurious compared to air travel) to private cabins (at several multipliers of price). Pod style rooms would presumably be cheaper than that, but still a lot more expensive than a seat?
Then in places without high speed passenger rail, like the US, this wouldn't really be able to address the major problems with train travel (slowness, lower priority than freight, low reliability, etc.).
Under what scenarios would using pods instead of cabins be more economically viable? And could these be retrofitted into existing sleeper cars, or would they have to build entirely new trains?