[danielbarla]

I guess it depends on just what size vehicles we're talking about. I agree that having tiny one or few person pods would probably not be efficient. But a "10-person cars on rails", type of scenario might not be as insane as you make it sound. Since it neatly side-steps the most complex parts of automated driving, we could have the reality of a well orchestrated fleet of smaller units. These could link up for efficiency on demand (maybe even while in motion), then separate again if they are operating in a complex web. Having a cheaper way of making tunnels feeds back again into the loop. Without doing any rigorous analysis, I can't comment much, but I wouldn't dismiss it offhand.

[ghaff]

So, it would presumably be like loading small trams at a ski area--if they had lots of intermediate stops rather than maybe just one. Yes, those work. Everyone is typically also able-bodied enough to be skiing and you have attendants supervising the loading and unloading.