This would be an excellent idea! It’s not for all cases but this could be adopted where it makes sense 👏
There's a new CBC Radio article that OP may have forgotten to link to.
It does seem like there's not much of a use case if you don't have the requirement to cover a large change in elevation in a relatively short distance - mountains, or to get up and over a shipping lane, or something like that. The article argues for them to be inexpensive, which...I'm sure they are, but they seem to be relatively low-capacity, and pretty limited in terms of the number of stops you could include on a route. But I'm not an expert, and maybe I'd be surprised.