- some lines like Yamanote already use mobile block, 1 minute headways is pretty much SoTA with or without it.
- some systems like surface trams and AGTs can stop on a dime, but they are low efficiency, low capacity systems.
- trains scale well, the longest freight train known to man so far is ~4.5 miles long. A typical 15-car ~2k passenger commuter trains stretch about 300m(0.2mi).
- Just napkin math in loud: each Yamanote train at typical 150% capacity running at 1-minute headways can transport 2k[pax] * 60[min] = 120k passengers per hour per train; Yamanote has 30 stations with at at least one each of CW and CCW platforms; 120k * 30 stations is already 3.6m passenger per hour combined, or 28.8m per 8 hour day. Hypothetically the train can be joined back to back, operated 16 hours per day, tracks can be doubled, for a 2^3 multiplier to 28.8m figure. That's 230.8m/day or about 67.5% US population worth of traffic from just four pair of rails, and that's technically feasible with current technology. The question is how to make bucks out of it(build pairs of one Disneyland and a highrise apartment complex each along the rails)
- some lines like Yamanote already use mobile block, 1 minute headways is pretty much SoTA with or without it.
- some systems like surface trams and AGTs can stop on a dime, but they are low efficiency, low capacity systems.
- trains scale well, the longest freight train known to man so far is ~4.5 miles long. A typical 15-car ~2k passenger commuter trains stretch about 300m(0.2mi).
- Just napkin math in loud: each Yamanote train at typical 150% capacity running at 1-minute headways can transport 2k[pax] * 60[min] = 120k passengers per hour per train; Yamanote has 30 stations with at at least one each of CW and CCW platforms; 120k * 30 stations is already 3.6m passenger per hour combined, or 28.8m per 8 hour day. Hypothetically the train can be joined back to back, operated 16 hours per day, tracks can be doubled, for a 2^3 multiplier to 28.8m figure. That's 230.8m/day or about 67.5% US population worth of traffic from just four pair of rails, and that's technically feasible with current technology. The question is how to make bucks out of it(build pairs of one Disneyland and a highrise apartment complex each along the rails)