You're thinking about it backwards. It's not a "better MUNI". There's no turnstiles or gates, just bays. Not 4 or 6 like a train station but 40 to 60. Boarding a few people or more likely 1 takes less than 30s. That's 2/second. Plenty of bandwidth. And these stations are smaller and more dense, not every 15 blocks in the city but every few blocks, maybe in a large building's lobby. There's no swiping, it's on your smartphone and automated ( Open app, click "go home", app says "bay 21, approx, 2 min, pod #123, 1 other passenger"). Doors close when all the passengers are present. Pod has "pad requires service" button on console if there is a cleanliness issue.
This is attractive to the NIMBY crowd, fewer cars, less non-resident parking, less noise ( electric motors ) less local pollution. Who wouldn't want local rapid transit? They're not putting in Walmarts.
> There's no swiping, it's on your smartphone and automated ( Open app, click "go home", app says "bay 21, approx, 2 min, pod #123, 1 other passenger").
And in this hypothetical world, absolutely everyone who uses public transit has a smartphone?
Let's imagine the system engineers are smarter than that: if you have a smart phone, you can use the app. If you don't, there'd be a terminal in the station you could use. I'd imagine the engineers for this could have thought of that.
Easy enough to just assume people have smart phones and only have it in cities where mostly people will have them even the poorer people. A cheap smart phone isn't that expensive any more.
It's not just the cost, really: I know I can have a second hand smartphone for peanuts. There'll probably always be some people who don't use smartphones, for whatevre reason.
This is attractive to the NIMBY crowd, fewer cars, less non-resident parking, less noise ( electric motors ) less local pollution. Who wouldn't want local rapid transit? They're not putting in Walmarts.