I'm honestly impressed that someone who knows their shit as well as this guy clearly does did the analysis and presented quite a realisticly-achievable plan that managed to meet the completely aspirational goal I had of needing an average 200 km/h travel time for it to be viable for the average person.

26,000 people travelling this corridor every day makes this a complete no-brainer to build.

I don't really understand how he's arrived at his "plane time" in the comparison at the end. My own searching suggests he's added on some random amounts.

Personally, if I were doing the comparison, I would add a minimum of 1 hour to the plane time to account for the recommended 1 hour early arrival at the airport. Then I'd add on some amount extra to account for the fact that airports are typically less-centrally located than central train stations. Maybe use average public transport time from the centre of the CBD (where it takes you if you just put "Sydney" etc. into Google Maps) to the airport. You can do the same for the rail too if you like. That would improve how rail looks, especially on the Melbourne–Canberra route where it would become properly competitive.

I dunno the difference between "Metro to Metro" and "City to City" as he puts it. Plane time increases for some reason, but rail time doesn't.