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 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.

In day-mode, passengers sit on large couch-like sofa, it’s a little office or living room. During the night the seat lowers down and, together with additional space below the aisle, converts into a large bed.

There are also variants for two or three passengers.

The Seat Pod

The Seat Pods: full privacy with high capacity

The pods provide a big private seat during the day and a lie-flat bed at night. The technology provides the same seating density as six-passenger couchettes, or close to day coaches. But we provide more space, day and night mode, direct aisle access and individual privacy for all.

Developed in the physical world

We believe that the user of a product and their experience should be the central for development. 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.

With 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€.

Solving the Economics of Night Trains

All the night train technologies based on rail cars are bound by the total operating cost of running each rail car. Thanks to dynamic pricing, an operator can sell the first ticket for cheap. But unless they can improve efficiency, for every discounted ticket, another passenger has to pay extra. In order to actually become competitive, we need to reduce the average ticket price.

This price is dictated by a trade-off: passenger capacity versus individual privacy. Usually, more privacy means fewer passengers per rail car, which increases the cost per ticket.

For any traveler, they price they will deem fair depends on the level of comfort. For a basic couchette, that ceiling is low. For a truly private space, it’s higher. This relationship creates a Viability Threshold – the boundary a product’s cost must stay under to be economically sustainable on a large scale.

We are the first to offer high levels of privacy well within the zone of economic sustainability. This unlocks the potential for profitable operations, the expansion of routes to new cities, and a more accessible network for all travelers.

In the Future

We have developed and tested our approach assuming a newly developed rail vehicle. We then worked “backwards” adapting the approach towards existing rail cars.

In the short and medium term, our technology involving cabins around a central corridor can significantly improve the efficiency of night trains. In the long term, our patented approach involving cabins on all sides of a central corridor will increase capacity by another 25%.

In the Media

Einfach Genial / Simply Genious (MDR / Mediathek / Youtube): Nachtzug-Revolution – Sieht so der Nachtzug der Zukunft aus? Feb 2025

The MDR (public TV channel in Germany) filmed us over several days and produced a 25 minute documentary about our idea, technological development and tests in their “Einfach Genial” format, which showcases inventors and startups developing new kind of technology (aired Feb 18, 2025, at 7:50pm).

Use the Auto-translate setting for captions to view the documentary with English subtitles.

See further coverage in Eurail-Press, Eisenbahn in Ö, D, CH on our “In the Media” 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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