The Future Of Sustainable Travel
Luna Rail is developing a new generation of night & day trains
optimizing space usage, comfort and economics all at once, providing a sustainable alternative for airline passengers and the best possible travel experience.
Travel with Comfort, without CO2
Night trains offer a sustainable alternative to aviation, at a fraction of the emissions per passenger-km.
The problem of existing night trains is lack of comfort, lack of privacy, that the trains have low capacity and can only run at night. This limits their attractiveness and economics. Our technology will solve those problems and will bring night trains into the future.
The Hotel Pod
The Hotel Pods: affordable premium
The hotel pod offers a private single cabin for all passengers while, significantly increasing the capacity over conventional sleeper cars.
By day, a spacious sofa creates your personal living room or office on the move. At night, the seat smoothly converts into a large, comfortable bed.
There are also variants for two or three passengers.
The approach offers by far the highest number of single cabins in a single deck train.
The Seat Pod
The Seat Pods: full privacy with high capacity
The Seat Pod offers a large, private seat for daytime travel that converts into a full lie-flat bed for the night.
Our technology achieves a high capacity, comparable to a six-passenger couchette and approaching that of conventional day coaches. But we provide more space, direct aisle access, and true individual privacy for all.
The approach offers 50% more capacity than existing approaches (ÖBB), while also optimizing for day as well as night comfort.
Developed in the physical world
We believe that the user of a product and their experience should be the central for development. You can’t test ergonomics or comfort from a rendering alone. It must be experienced. That’s why our process has been accompanied by continuous user-tests in physical full-sized mock ups and rapid iterations based on the feedback we get.
We have run tests with over hundreds of participants, each trying our various pods. Our “users” have communicated a high attractiveness of our technology both for day and night usage.
Daytime Attractiveness
of our test users consider a day trip in a Seat Pod more attractive than the 2nd class of a high-speed train. 32% consider the Seat Pod more attractive than 1st class.
of our test users consider a day trip in a Hotel Pod more attractive than the 2nd class of a high-speed train. 49% consider the Hotel Pod more attractive than 1st class.
Nighttime Attractiveness
of our test users rate the quality of the sleeping position in a Seat Pod to be “good” or “very good”. 88% rated them “satisfactory” or better.
of our test users rate the quality of the sleeping position in a Hotel Pod to be “good” or “very good”. 94% rated them “satisfactory” or better.
Competitiveness
of our test users consider traveling over night in a Seat Pod attractive, while
- 35% consider a bed in a shared couchette (with 3 others) attractive
- 40% consider a flight with a budget airline attractive
Assuming 1000km trip and ticket cost of 100€.
of our test users consider traveling overnight in a Hotel Pod attractive, while
- 25% of our test users would consider a flight with a full-service airline attractive
Assuming 1000km trip and ticket cost of 150€.
Guided by a Goal
Our development process is guided by a long-term, patent-pending goal: a day-and-night rail vehicle that maximizes passenger capacity. We adapted the technology for the real-world constraints of existing conventional railcars.
The approach is intended to make night trains truly competitive. We want to unlock the potential for profitable operations, lower ticket prices, and a significant expansion of the night train network.
Explore “our approach” page.
One App
Manage the entire journey with the Luna Rail app.
This includes the booking process, travel information, ticket validation, controlling the cabin including unlocking doors, as well as ordering service. The design of the app, the cabin and the company is all integrated into one. A consistent design language across app and physical product provides a seamless experience through the whole user journey.
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