What it’s like to ship yourself overnight on Cabin’s sleep pod bus

https://techcrunch.com/2017/07/22/cabin-sleep-pod-bus-review

by thelinuxkid • 9 years ago

60 47 9 years ago

g00n• 9 years ago

Trying to think if this would work for me. I don't live there and haven't commuted that type of distance regular enough to warrant this type of expense. But, on trips, I tend to stay alert enough to know what's going on regardless of how hard to try to sleep. I tend to try to drive on trips because I don't trust other people driving. They mention wanting autonomous buses to run that route, but I just got my class B CDL and could see myself making this run every weekend as a job which would be cool.

romanovcode• 9 years ago

I'm not sure why would someone do this if flying takes way less time and is cheaper.

josefwasinski• 9 years ago

Cost of travel + accomodation.

If you are flying there is a need to book a hotel to deliver the same experience of being in LA/SF at 7am refreshed.

That is the "free money" in the model, people can exchange sleep in a hotel for a sleep on a bus with pretty much the same outcome.

Tepix3• 9 years ago

Ideally there'd be a place to take a shower where you arrive.

nkoren3• 9 years ago

This is intended to replace flying + hotel, which does not take less time or money.

Let's say you're in San Francisco and want to be in Santa Monica the whole of the next day. Your options are:

1. Wake up at 3:30am, leave the house at 4, arrive SFO by 5, flight at 6:30, at LAX at 8, get to Santa Monica at 9. You are now completely shattered for the day.

2. Fly at a reasonable hour he night before, and rent a hotel in Santa Monica. You have now spent more money than Cabin.

3. Go to sleep on a bus at a reasonable hour in San Francisco; wake up at a reasonable hour in Santa Monica. You've used less of your waking-time to travel, and have spent less money than getting a hotel.

codebeaker• 9 years ago

Convenience, and comfort factor. If I can take a bus, and sleep 10-12h uninterrupted, it's worth the premium.

The alternative is broken travel, lines, TSA harassment, and arriving at your destination a hollow shell of your former self having had the live and soul sucked out of you by incompetence, harmful lighting design and oppressive neon tubes and the brown noise of an aircraft engine sapping your very will to exist.

anotheryou• 9 years ago

You americans don't have any trains, eh? :)

Not exactly the ritz, but does the job: https://www.google.com/search?tbm=isch&q=sleeping+train

fruitcake• 9 years ago

There is a sleeper train up the coast from Los Angeles to San Francisco:

https://www.amtrak.com/coast-starlight-train

exDM69• 9 years ago

Someone in the comments mentioned that Amtrak's sleeper train travels daytime on the SF to LA stint and the terminals are some way away from the city. So the travel by night advantage is gone.

Amtrak's sleeper cars are also quite expensive when I last looked at it as an option for getting from Colorado to San Francisco. The price compared to a seat on the train was 2..3x or more (but it includes food).

throwanem2• 9 years ago

Everywhere except the eastern seaboard from roughly DC north, we really don't - we have a freight rail system that occasionally hosts passenger trains, too.

It's super annoying. I hate to fly - well, that's not true; I hate the pervasive unpleasantness and inconvenience of US commercial air travel - and find trains much more congenial, but e.g. two days to get from where I live to where I grew up, plus two more days to get back, is more travel time than I can afford.

Unfortunately, while we have an activist billionaire interested in trying to improve this situation, he appears to prefer vacuum-tube moonshots, starting in the country's best-served and most infrastructurally complex transit market, to doing anything useful right now. So it goes.

wlesieutre• 9 years ago

Found a map of the system on Amtraks' site: http://blog.amtrak.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/RTTL-Map-I...

There are a couple of routes across the country, stopping roughly once per state if that. As you mentioned, it's freight with a few passenger trains sharing the tracks.

In addition to the northeast region (DC, Philly, NYC, Boston) you can do pretty well in Chicago. It's the hub of all of those routes except for the one on the US/Mexico border.

sunir• 9 years ago

They have trains but all track is owned by freight train providers.

Here's a good overview why.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=mbEfzuCLoAQ

Robotbeat• 9 years ago

Americans, I do believe, pioneered the sleeping car for trains: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleeping_car

First the Cumberland Valley Railroad in 1839, then George Pullman's more luxurious version in 1865 that was very successful (and from there, it spread to Europe).

apendleton• 9 years ago

Not sure I'd really want to get where I was going with bed-head and no access to a shower. Other than that, seems like a great idea. Maybe they could work out a cross-promotion or voucher or something that would let people use the showers/locker room at a gym at the destination?

calbear81• 9 years ago

Actually, you wouldn't need any of that at the destination which is Santa Monica pier. You get out in the LA sunshine, walk down the steps to the beach and take a dip in the Pacific. When you're done, rinse off in one of the public beach showers and you'll be dry in a jiffy.

dewey2• 9 years ago

I haven't used Cabin but a lot of other bus companies (Megabus, Greyhound, Flixbux,...) and trains with sleeping compartments and I imagine the bus to be a lot harder to sleep on (vibrations, breaking, highway noise,...) than a train on fixed tracks.

nkoren3• 9 years ago

Have you ridden trains in America? I've travelled almost every Amtrak route across the country. In a country that properly maintains its rail infrastructure, Cabin will definitely lose much of its competitive advantage. In America, however...

dewey2• 9 years ago

Only used trains in Europe so far hence why my impression of trains is probably a bit biased...

dageshi• 9 years ago

I've done sleeper buses/trains in south east asia/China and my impression was you actually get used to it fairly easily. The trains were generally better simply because the beds were bigger, but I'd definitely take a "sleeper" bus over a regular sit down bus any time, lying down even if it's a bit cramped is always more comfortable than sitting up.

hasteur• 9 years ago

Have you ever taken a Greyhound? Granted I have a n=1 experience, however a Bus leaving Denver (with a final destination of Dallas) leaved much to be desired.

The route-through method means that you'll stop about once every hour for 15~20 minutes for on-off and snacks/restroom. If you're still somewhat wakeful these stops are just at the twilight phase and you don't get truly restful sleep.

baybal2• 9 years ago

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ooldezaZgU0 ...

atemerev3• 9 years ago

If only we'd had similar capsules on transcontinental flights — now, that would be something. Otherwise, it is just a bus serving two points, no more exciting than a sleeping car in a train.

Properly sleeping on a flight, on the other hand, feels like luxury.

toomanybeersies2• 9 years ago

They do, if you fly first class. You just have to spend several thousand dollars on a ticket. Air New Zealand also offers skycouch (https://www.airnewzealand.co.nz/economy-skycouch), which is similar and cheaper, but really is only worth it if you're traveling with your partner or someone else you feel comfortable spooning for an entire flight.

atemerev3• 9 years ago

Capsules are arranged differently — they can be stacked together vertically, and probably be offered at least for the price of business class seats.

(If the weight is a great concern, and it is, and capsules are too heavy — hammocks can also be an option).

Tepix3• 9 years ago

Skycouch looks great, definitely something to consider next time I fly Air New Zealand² - are there other airlines that offer something like that?

---

² last time I flew with them was awful, worst legroom I've ever encountered.

toomanybeersies2• 9 years ago

That's a very expensive sleeper bus. I took an 8 hour sleeper bus here in New Zealand, including free wifi (which you don't even need, you're sleeping), and it cost me NZ$30 (US$22), including luggage. The same thing in Vietnam cost me about $10, but had the problem that the beds were Vietnamese sized, which for a European wasn't super comfortable.

Sure, they weren't quite as fancy, but it really doesn't matter if you're sleeping, you're asleep. I guess that's the SV markup on everything that's been common in the rest of the world for a long time.

They are super convenient though, pick up and drop off in the middle of the city, and accommodation included. Go to sleep, and you wake up at your destination.

nvahalik• 9 years ago

Looks like the cabins don't have sound barriers... better hope you don't get a snorer on the trip!

mike-cardwell• 9 years ago

Ear plugs?

Tepix3• 9 years ago

I can't wait until we get autonomous driving and can convert our cars into sleep pods. When you're going across the country at a slow pace, the MPG (or MPGe for electric cars) is also going to be fantastic. You'd still need autonomous recharging for an electric car but apparently that's a solved problem as well.

What it’s like to ship yourself overnight on Cabin’s sleep pod bus

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