Railway Age has an interesting article about Brightline.
Rolling Into Orlando
Railway Age
By David Lester
Oct. 25, 2022
"Goddard adds, “The base of our model is city pair corridors that are too long to drive and too short to fly. These city pairs are densely populated and connect with very congested highway infrastructure. Plus, when you look at comparable systems around the world, they seek to capture the addressable travel market, which is around 15%, and in some cases, between 30% and 40%. In our case, in the Florida market, we only need about 5% of the addressable travel market to be profitable. In the Los Angeles-Las Vegas market, we need to capture around 15%.” The difference between the addressable travel market in south Florida and L.A.-Vegas is that there are multiple ways to move between city pairs in Florida, while there is essentially only one way to get from L.A. to Vegas along I-15.
From a fare perspective, Brightline only needs to charge about a third of what Acela costs. “So, these things give us the highest degree of confidence in our path to profitability,” said Goddard “We’re operating today only about 20% of what our system will be capable of in terms of capacity and about one-fifth of our fare potential. Our operation thus far has been a proof-of-concept, demonstrating that people will get out of their cars and look at the train as a viable mode of transportation. We’re warming up the Florida market as we prepare to roll into Orlando. At the same time, Orlando is a less populated market; it is, however, much bigger in terms of a domestic and international tourist attraction, making it more significant as a demand generator.” Brightline has about 85% of awareness in the Florida market—i.e., about 85% of the people it wants to know about Brightline do know about it, about half of those people have tried the train, and about half of those people are riding the train frequently..."
Additionally, Brightline is looking at 12 - 15 markets for new service.
"Vanessa Alfonso, a spokesperson for Brightline, told Railway Age that “this is a generational moment for transportation and train travel. Frequent departures, 200-300-mile markets, and higher speed. We believe that Brightline has proven that short legs for high-speed rail are needed, as evidenced by the quick growth we’ve had.” She added that 12-15 other city pairs in the country offer opportunities for Brightline.
In addition to the Miami-Orlando-Tampa and Los Angeles-Las Vegas lines, Brightline says that other potential routes include Atlanta-Charlotte, Washington-New York-Boston, St. Louis-Chicago, a Texas triangle of Dallas-Austin-San Antonio-Houston and Portland-Seattle-Vancouver..."
https://www.railwayage.com/passenger...-into-orlando/