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Smart Elevators Coming to Seattle
coaxial writes "Fujitec has unveiled a new elevator system for Seattle's Metropolitan Park West Tower. The new system uses touchpanels to group users by destination. Riders may wait slightly longer for the proper car, but the overall ride is shortened because the car stops less."
Way back in the day I used to do some IT work for a company that made elevator buttons for the big elevator companies. It was one of the oddest companies you had ever seen.
I used to ask them why the basic "up/down" button was never replaced with a better control system -- you could request the floor you wanted to go to on the outside of the elevator instead of the inside. Sure it would cost more (needing buttons at every floor) but you could prioritize the elevator's path, saving money and time in the long run.
They told me it would never happen -- elevators would always be as they were. I guess he was mostly right, since it is now 10 years later and we still have up/down buttons, long waits, and no real efficiency in destination planning. I actually used to consider about once a year writing a paper on sorting the elevator destinations real time based on where people were and where they would be heading.
I'm surprised it finally happened.
A few things I wish elevators had (some jokingly just out of frustration):
1. On/off toggle. The idiot that hits the call button ten times would only toggle the button on and off 5 times. Let him wait, I hate the clicking sound.
2. On/off toggle in the elevator. Have you had the kid hit 10 buttons? I have. Many times. Have you had some idiot hit a few buttons by accident? I get it every week. Not that I'm in a rush, but come on, think before you hit a button.
3. Early elevator arrival notification. Tell me which elevator will be the one I'll be entering. I've been in some buildings where I'll miss 3 elevators because they don't notify you which one to wait by. Maybe they do this to prevent people from crowding the doors, but I'd rather people learn etiquette than have the crazy rushes you see in some Chicago lobbies.
4. VIP floor access. Pay $1 and get to your floor immediately.
5. BING muting. Have you been in these elevators that have to BING at every floor, even when you're going to the 33rd from the 1st? Yeesh, give me a mute button.
6. Free spray deodarant in each elevator. Talk about needing to teach people etiquette.
Actually, the wait time for an elevator will be shorter. However, because the user will not get to ride the first elevator whose door opens, the perceived wait time will be longer.
In the Times Square Marriott here in NYC, in the lobby each elevator has a keypad where you key in the floor you want to go to, and then it shows you on an LED display which elevator number you want to go to. It is actually kind-of confusing, because you type in one number and it gives you another, but after you clear that hurdle, it works great. You get in an elevator, it stops on your floor without further input, and continues to its next destination. I think about that elevator system a lot, despite only ever having used it twice.
So this means you'll have to see the same people everyday in the elevator? That sucks. I enjoyed seeing the attractive women from the other floors every once in a while.
Instead of messing with elevator, my prof used a bit of social psychology. He had mirrors installed next to the elevator on every floor. Apparently, the self-absorbed students and faculty looked at themselves in the mirrors while waiting for the elevator, and lost track of their waiting time. From what I remember, complaints about the slow elevators got reduced to about 1/2.
I'm staying in the Marquee as I write this, and I can say this is the stupidest system for elevators I've ever seen.
When it gets very busy, which is in theory when this system should be most effective, it breaks down completely. Here's what happens: All the people who are confused and tired of waiting for their elevator rush to any elevator that opens, not realizing it may not be going to their floor. Then the people who actually know how the system works can't get on their elevator, and have to rekey their floor and then be told to wait for a different elevator. And then the whole process repeats.
It is somewhat hilarious to watch people get on the elevator, reach for the non-existent floor buttons inside the car, then look around confused as the doors close and they are whisked off to some random floor nowhere near their destination.
We had this at the university dormitory for the math and physics department for at least 20 years now. It's a 20 stories high building so it was necessary. The solution didn't require any special hardware though, just a bit of thinking. Half of the elevators had the buttons for the first 10 floors blocked. :)
If programs would be read like poetry, most programmers would be Vogons.
The PriceWaterhouseCoopers building in Auckland, NZ, already has this. It works very well. The only problem with it is when first time users walk into an elevator and realise there are no keypads. They try to speak to the elevator Star Trek style.
Try holding the door-close button while pressing your floor.
n g/
http://www.engadget.com/2005/08/02/elevator-hacki
A friend of mine got a job with the elevator repair union (you have to know someone to get in) and he's confirmed this is true for some models.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
I do this.
I've been in super-busy hotels during conventions and the best advice you can give anyone is to just get in the elevator if there's space.
Doesn't matter if it's going up or down, just get in. It will get where you're going eventually.
From my anecdotal experience, I'd be coming back past the floor I had been on and I'd see the same people I had left behind. Only now the elevator is full.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
That's simply false and doesn't even merit a response.
Let's see how I can pwn this comment with a response of some articles covering how the disabled are hurt by the ADA laws and complaince regulations:
If You Weren't Disabled Before the ADA, You Are Now by Greg Perry
ADA Success? At What?
What is disabled?
These are my top 3 favorite articles (different authors, same website that keeps a good list of pro-liberty pieces). Read them and you'll see that the ADA is not helpful.
By the way, I have disabled friends and family who all agree it is harder to get a job and costlier to be disabled now than 10 years ago. What is your basis to repudiate what they've told me? Are you disabled? Do you live with a disabled person? Do you employ disabled people? I have a full time IT tech that is deaf who has worked for me for 3 years, and I pay him double what he received at his previous job. I also have a blind sales person who travels for me (he's legally blid 20/400 in his best eye) internationally. I do think I have something to say over what you do, my "theory" is based on facts in dealing with the disabled. Your "theory" seems to be based on class warfare.
This sounds like another high tech effort to solve a problem which really isn't a big problem. There are probably many large buildings where a system like this makes sense, but from personal experience I know that this tech sometimes causes more headaches than it solves.
In the late 1990s, I worked at the AAAS building in Washington, DC. AAAS is the publisher of Science magazine, which most of you have heard about. The AAAS headquarters building is this sleek 12-story high tech edifice designed by famous architect I.M. Pei. It was built it the mid-90s and it features a smart elevator system which requires that people select their floor and then the elevator bunches people up for rides.
The elevator system was pretty cool, but the "smart" system wasn't so smart. Over several years of operation it became obvious to the staff that the elevator system was contributing to a dysfunctional organizational culture. People in different departments on different weren't interacting in the same way they would if they had been randomly grouped together for "inefficient" elevator rides. There were two bunches of three floors which had an atrium with an open staircase, but the building also discouraged using the stairs between floors because of security reasons. We were always rescuing people who couldn't get out of the stairways.
The joke became that the only time the staff in the association mingled was at Christmas parties and at the annual meeting. The smart elevator system actually worked against people in the organization getting to know each other through casual and chance elevator encounters. The "smart" elevator did a good job of putting co-workers together for rides to the same floor, but it also worked against social cohesion in the organization.
Of course, in all likelyhood, you would have gotten the same elevator had you pressed down.
Interestingly enough, this appeared to be the sole situtation where this logic makes sense. Let's say there are 15 floors, you are on five. You want down, as do people on floors 3, 6, 7, and 8. There two elevators (It doesn't work with one.), and one just dropped someone off in the lobby, and the other at 15.
If you press down, the elevator at the top will go 8, 7, 6, 5, and 3. Or possibly the one in the lobby will grab 3 and 5.
If you press up, or down and up, the elevator at the top will start grabbing people on the way down, and the elevator at the bottom will come up and get you. At which point you can rocket to the bottom. (Well, you'd grab the person at 3 also.)
So, in theory that worked faster.
In practice, however, if people do this, the person at 6 will also push up and down. Now the elevator comes and gets you, and then goes and gets the person at 6. Meanwhile, he's possibly gotten on the other elevator, or possibly not. Regardless, by the time the doors have closed on the 6, the other elevator has certainly passed you.
Of course, you've managed to slow that other one down, because you pushed the button for 5, and it will stop there. Meanwhile, you'll probably end up getting 3, and you'll hit the bottom at the same time.
If the person on 6 and 7 do it...
Interestingly, looking at the logic, it's not just you you're slowing down. You're also slowing down the other elevators.
Basically, you're screwing up the 'elevator movement reduction' where it's grabbing up people going in the same direction in the same car, and instead trying to get your own car, which does, indeed, work when there's a car to spare, and it doesn't hurt anything too bad. However, when there is not a car to spare, someone else will picked to be placed in your car, and you will go halfway around the world and slow everything around, and it's even more absurd when you realize others get queued in your car by doing the same thing. (In addition to people just legitimately trying to get somewhere.)
Of course, this only works in elevator banks with at least two elevators. It never makes any sense with one, because the elevator will transverse exactly the same path...you just will get in it sooner, and it will stop back at your floor on the way down, wasting time. There is no 'movement reduction' logic in those things, they basically bounce back and forth between the currently highest and currently lowest requested floor.
And people laughed when that guy made SimTower as an elevator simulator. I want an actual elevator simulator now, with programmable people, so I can actually watch all this.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?