I'd rather not go into much depth, because I could probably write for a few days on the economics of train transportation, but there are two aspects that are key here:
The first is that they own the land surrounding the station and are pursuing development potential. They are deliberately trying the Hong Kong MTR model here. This should help, but if they do it right (like the MTR does it), they'll be able to make money on rail revenues alone, with development being the cherry on top.
But the big one is the growth of the line. The dirty secret in HSR is that fast trains are valuable not because of their top speed, but rather because of how their acceleration enables more stops with minimal negative impact to their schedule. The revenue of a line tends to grow polynomially (where the polynomial is > 1) with the length and the number of stops, whereas the speed decreases logarithmically. The value of a Miami to Ft Lauderdale line is tiny, with the market defined by the people who are going from Miami to Ft Lauderdale. But as the line grows, the market definition will include anybody with travel demand found in the cartesian product of {Miami, Ft. Lauderdale, Boca Raton, Pompano Beach, Palm Beach, Orlando}. That market is huge, and this segment is just the beginning.
Where did you read that it (the Brightline) stops in Boca Raton and Pompano Beach? I heard that it only has four stops----Miami, Ft. Lauderdale, West Palm Beach and (eventually) Orlando.
I could have sworn that I read about a station being planned right in between the two cities, but I can't find anything about it now. I wouldn't be surprised to see something like that in the future though, along with some of the cities that are heavily lobbying for stops (St Lucie/Fort Pierce, Palm Bay, Cocoa, and possibly even Jacksonville and Tampa)
It defeats the purpose of "high speed" if you can't actually get to "high speed" due to stops.
Also, this I think is more geared for tourist traffic than daily commute traffic. Orlando for the parks, West Palm Beach for the shopping (my guess), Ft. Lauderdale and Miami for the cruise ships.
> It defeats the purpose of "high speed" if you can't actually get to "high speed" due to stops.
Not in the slightest. Every successful HSR system in the world has plenty of stops in what most people would consider trivial towns. And they all regularly run on average well below their top speed because of it. Those aren't pointless stops; when put in the context of the rest of the cartesian network, they provide significant enough revenue to justify their own existence.
This is true for both HSR lines that are publicly owned as well as pure private systems like in Japan...in other words, they aren't there for political reasons. In fact, the most financially successful lines in the world happen to have the most stops in <50k population towns. If there is any political influence in the matter, it is doing the opposite and passing up stops with little political power, to their financial detriment. Like I said, the real reason for the power in HSR is acceleration, not top speed.
The only thing that defeats the purpose of HSR is when they don't make enough money to justify their existence, making them eventually go away.
In France there where major demonstrations and direct actions to try and get one of the northern TSV's to stop in their city - they wanted the tourism benefits.
Usually when they won't stop in a specific city it is either because there is another stop very close by (<30min drive), or because a stop would require a complete change of the right of way. There are plenty of LGV stops in tiny towns and suburbs...I've seen some with populations as low as 15k people.
The first is that they own the land surrounding the station and are pursuing development potential. They are deliberately trying the Hong Kong MTR model here. This should help, but if they do it right (like the MTR does it), they'll be able to make money on rail revenues alone, with development being the cherry on top.
But the big one is the growth of the line. The dirty secret in HSR is that fast trains are valuable not because of their top speed, but rather because of how their acceleration enables more stops with minimal negative impact to their schedule. The revenue of a line tends to grow polynomially (where the polynomial is > 1) with the length and the number of stops, whereas the speed decreases logarithmically. The value of a Miami to Ft Lauderdale line is tiny, with the market defined by the people who are going from Miami to Ft Lauderdale. But as the line grows, the market definition will include anybody with travel demand found in the cartesian product of {Miami, Ft. Lauderdale, Boca Raton, Pompano Beach, Palm Beach, Orlando}. That market is huge, and this segment is just the beginning.