Actually, there is plenty of reason they shouldn't have to abide by the same regulations.
We have the rules we have for hotels because they're typically large buildings with many rooms (often smaller than even the minimum dwelling size for private apartments) and that density presents significant safety hazards to many people should anything happen, not just you. You being in a 100sf room on the 11th floor makes it very hard to not have you die if there's a fire, especially when there's hundreds of you to evacuate.
There's no reason that someone say...renting out a detached single story house should need anything more than a working smoke/CO detector.
They're not really comparable, rail offers far higher passenger capacities and multiple stops are much more practical.
While you can make a multiple stage detachable gondola, every detach point/stage is adding significantly more points of failure and complexity. There is a reason you don't see more than ~3-4 stages and that's it.
They are also very maintenance intensive and not all that reliable.