Containerized Passenger Service

Containerized shipping has been a very successful technique, as anyone who lives near a seaport probably knows. Containers of standard size are loaded onto ships (specifically designed as container carriers) and unloaded (by cranes specifically designed to move cargo containers). The same containers can travel by rail or semitrailer. Because they're of uniform size, they can be packed efficiently in cargo spaces or dockside warehouses, and even automatically stored/retrieved/handled.

Railways have been using the basic technique for a long time: individual cars of a train can be decoupled and reformed into new trains in a switch yard; a given carload of freight may be pulled by several different companies' locomotives, over different companies' tracks, on its way to its destination. Even before that, standardized barrel sizes simplified shipping, dock handling, and storage in the days of wooden ships. Modern intermodal container shipping, though, unifies all these forms of travel. The end user can put stuff into a container at point A and take it out at point B, ignoring the several different technologies and half-a-dozen shipping companies it might have taken to get there.

Why not apply this marvelous innovation to passenger travel? Ideas like whatsbruin's RuggedAir Outfitters suggest that travel is no longer a polite, convivial experience for the mannered rich. Travellers hate and fear their fellow travellers. Therefore, they will not mind --- in fact they will appreciate --- if their favorite airline converts to Containerized Passenger Service. The airline, of course, will do so because it's more efficient and profitable.

There will be a small number of standard passenger container sizes: the economy "tube hotel" size, just big enough to lie down in; the midsize business-traveler size, in which you can sit or recline and have just enough room for your laptop; and the large size, the size of a small room, for first-class travelers or small families. (The larger sizes will have to be multiples of the smallest size, to retain the advantage of standardized sizes.) Containers would have hookups for power, air/heating/cooling, possibly water and waste for the large ones, and of course a pneumatic tube system to deliver the inflight peanuts and booze.

When you go on a trip, you will schedule to have a container dropped off at your house the day before. Frequent travelers might own their own container. You load it with your luggage and amenities, and get in and seal the hatch at the appointed time. The travel company will send a flatbed truck around and load all of the containers onto the truck. From there they'll be hauled to the airport, where automatic machinery can sort the containers out according to which flight they should go on. (Airports could possibly be built farther from cities and served by dedicated passenger-container-rail lines. The traveller doesn't even need to know about these details.) You may change planes several times, but you don't have to worry about it: you stay happily ensconced in your container. Eventually you reach your destination. If visiting a friend or relative, your container is dropped off at their door by a truck similar to the one that picked you up. If you are going to a hotel, you will be brought to the hotel. Modern hotels will bring your container directly to your room via the cargo elevator, and your room will be designed to be an extension of the container.

This solves many travel problems. No worries about finding rides to or from the airport. No worry about carryon vs. checked baggage --- it's all in your container with you. No need to hurry to your connecting flight --- getting you there is the airline's problem, now. No annoying passengers --- your container is a sealed, insulated, armored bit of personal space.

Details:
Containers would have to have a small auxiliary supply of power, air, etc. to supply you while you are sitting on a loading dock or in a sorting center somewhere.
You'd need to have a call signal for unexpected emergencies, etc. Also, the smaller capsules (tube-hotel sized) would not have room for a bathroom, so you'd need to get out to do that. I envision that the containers would be stacked with the "hatch" ends facing a corridor, and each capsule would have a section of ladder on it so you could climb down to the walkway and find the bathroom. There would be an indicator letting you know when it was safe to unseal the hatch.
For larger groups, you could request the travel company to stack a group of capsules next to each other, on a space-available basis.