> There's a reason we see so few of those on the roads, amidst an explosion of various human-powered modes of transport.
Cargo/passenger trikes are growing in popularity here where I live in London. I see probably a dozen a day which are an even mix of people ferrying kids about in a Danish/Dutch style "bakfiets" thing (you seem to be able to get 1-4 small people in the front of one of these depending on how picky they are about being squashed in) and cargo/parcel delivery which seem to be more modernized designs anecdotally. Whereas the model for a courier company used to be a person on a bicycle or motorbike doing one delivery at a time it seems more and more to be shifting to a person on a cargo bike doing multiple related deliveries in an area, and somewhat competing with traditional logistics just with a faster turnaround. The hook for parents seems to be if you have more than one kid it's still possible to use a bike to get around rather than a car (which is a very inconvenient mode of transport within London generally) and it's much faster and with bigger range compared with trying to get your offspring to walk (which might not even be possible for any kind of reasonable distance depending on age).
The advantage to these designs is that you have a bicycle that can carry cargo. Having decided that is the criterion you want to hit, having a modular version may well be beneficial.
The disadvantage you cite (that the driver can't lean) really doesn't factor too much into this use case because they aren't trying to travel at speed. Urban settings have much more stop-start movement in straight lines than cornering, and if you think about a parent with kids in the front of a bike they probably aren't trying to go super fast because they want to know they can definitely brake fast if the need arises.
Cargo/passenger trikes are growing in popularity here where I live in London. I see probably a dozen a day which are an even mix of people ferrying kids about in a Danish/Dutch style "bakfiets" thing (you seem to be able to get 1-4 small people in the front of one of these depending on how picky they are about being squashed in) and cargo/parcel delivery which seem to be more modernized designs anecdotally. Whereas the model for a courier company used to be a person on a bicycle or motorbike doing one delivery at a time it seems more and more to be shifting to a person on a cargo bike doing multiple related deliveries in an area, and somewhat competing with traditional logistics just with a faster turnaround. The hook for parents seems to be if you have more than one kid it's still possible to use a bike to get around rather than a car (which is a very inconvenient mode of transport within London generally) and it's much faster and with bigger range compared with trying to get your offspring to walk (which might not even be possible for any kind of reasonable distance depending on age).
The advantage to these designs is that you have a bicycle that can carry cargo. Having decided that is the criterion you want to hit, having a modular version may well be beneficial.
The disadvantage you cite (that the driver can't lean) really doesn't factor too much into this use case because they aren't trying to travel at speed. Urban settings have much more stop-start movement in straight lines than cornering, and if you think about a parent with kids in the front of a bike they probably aren't trying to go super fast because they want to know they can definitely brake fast if the need arises.