Tokyo Wants People To Stand on Both Sides of the Escalator (citylab.com)

When one side isn't reserved for walkers, it saves time for everyone. But transit users around the world just can't be convinced. Linda Poon, writing for CityLab: I'm one of those people who speed past everyone on the escalator. As long as the left side isn't blocked, no amount of judgement from fellow riders to the right, or safety warnings, or even falls (two and counting) will stop me -- not yet anyway. I'm certainly not alone; it's a common enough habit that some cities occasionally try to change such behavior for safety's sake. London's tried, so has Hong Kong and Washington, D.C. Now it's Tokyo's turn. East Japan Railway Company (JR East) launched a campaign this month calling on riders to stand on both sides of the escalators inside some of the city's busiest transit hubs.

Signs are posted on walls and above escalators, reading, in both Japanese and English, "Walking on escalators may lead to accidents caused by collisions or luggage." Bright pink handrails carry similar messages. And in some stations, security staff with neon-colored vests stand watch and guide people. If people are really in a hurry, JR East suggests, they should take the stairs. So far, the effort has had mixed results: According to the Japan Broadcasting Corporation (NHK), railway officials say that some people did stop but many commuters were still hustling up and down the escalator on Monday. The campaign is set to run until February 1.

Comments

Overall speed

[BeTeK]

I think I saw some research that actually when using both sides of escalator it actually increases the amount of people goes though. But the argument leaving other side free is to let those who are in the hurry walk and rest who are not that in a hurry just stand.

Re:Overall speed

[Anonymous Coward]

I think I saw some research that actually when using both sides of escalator it actually increases the amount of people goes though. But the argument leaving other side free is to let those who are in the hurry walk and rest who are not that in a hurry just stand.

That research concluded that long escalators, where people were highly unlikely to ever walk, benefited from not having a "walking lane". To this I say: congratulation "igNoble prize candidate". Way to go to prove something obvious from a biased premise.

This research has gotten way too much attention and too little scrutiny. If done properly they should have checked different lengths of escalators, tried to find if there is a cut-off point where no-walking is beneficial and when it makes no difference and also repeated in different cultures. In some cultures you never walk up an escalator, in others it is perfectly normal to do so. Even in my home country you would get very different results as you have a walk lane that is used in my home city, but in a neighboring city no-one walks in an escalator.

So this research is poorly conducted and you should refrain from drawing too big conclusions from it.

Where I live, the metro has quite long escalators and this unwritten "stand to the right, walk on the left"-rule, and those stations where a lot of people switch trains or to busses, the "walking lane" is full at peak hour. Simple math tells us that the research made is invalid then, because if the "walking lane" is just as full as if the people were standing, and they are walking, more people per time unit can be transported with the escalator (given that they are moving the same way the escalator is moving). And off-peak hours? Well, then the escalators aren't full anyway, so it is a moot point, there are no "queues" to the escalators anyway and there are no capacity problems.

The take away from this? Don't build too long escalators. Don't build so narrow escalators that people cannot pass.

And those two should be dead giveaways anyway. If the escalators stop working, they will still serve as stairs (albeit with too high steps to be really comfortable). But if they are too long, many people will find it tiresome to walk the entire length. Better to put landings and have several shorter escalators. That also prevents a long escalator from overloading when the load becomes too high.

As for too narrow escalators? The same, if it stops and people need to walk, someone should be able to walk a bit slower and people should be able to pass.

Re:Idoits

[Shaiku]

I guess you've never been the Japan. It's not universal but it is a very frequent habit for standers to stay to one side and walkers to freely use the other. They're not particularly wide and I'm an Amerifat but still manage not to clog up the escalator like a double-handrail-holding can't-fucking-balance jackass.

What are you doing touching the rails anyway--you want to pick up the latest cold or flu going around?

trivially proven not true

[dfghjk]

"When one side isn't reserved for walkers, it saves time for everyone."

This is an absurd claim that doesn't pass the most basic smell test.

If everyone is a stander, then the latency for everyone is fixed once they are on the device. Therefore, the only way to "save time for everyone" is for everyone to literally have to wait extra time to get on otherwise. That is clearly NEVER the case for everyone and is, in most instances, never the case for ANYONE.

If the most important thing is absolute throughput, then you need to pack like sardines to minimize wait on entry. This is likely never true except in an exceptional place during exceptional demand. Otherwise, it will always be best to yield space to those who need to minimize transit time since your latency will be unaffected. This is so trivially easy to understand it's a joke.

It's not wonder "transit users around the world just can't be convinced", it's because it's wrong. Laughably wrong.

Re:Stairs

[smooth wombat]

Maybe this is a stupid question, but why not just take the stairs if you're in a hurry?

Because people are lazy. They think running up a crowded escalator is faster than taking open stairs. I have tried this on several occasions. Pick someone on the escalator and walk up the stairs. Without exception I always arrive ahead of them. If I take the stairs faster, I'm already on my way while they're still stuck.

The same with parking lots. People will slowly drive around, looking for a close spot while I park further away. While I'm on my way into the building, they're just pulling into a spot or getting out of their car.

Laziness short circuits common sense in some situations. Going up a crowded escalator rather than using open stairs is one of those.

Makes sense some places, not others.

[onkelonkel]

Two at a time standing maybe makes sense if there are enough people at the bottom of the escalator to saturate it - i.e. a big enough crowd at the bottom that there are always two more people to step on each step as it appears.That is logically the maximum throughput, if you assume that people walking up leave spaces between them. If you had a pool of fit people who all wanted to get up the escalator as fast as possible, then they could all walk, or, god forbid, run up the escalator and the increased velocity would likely offset the effect of the spaces and you would achieve even greater throughput.
 
Around here the transit stations are busy, but seldom at saturation levels. People stand on the right and walk on the left. Seems to work well enough. Most people walk up, the ones who stand are usually pulling a suitcase, or elderly, or obese, or heads down reading a book or a screen.

Re:Stairs

[DNS-and-BIND]

Trotting up an escalator is slower than doing the same up the stairs? The escalator is moving. It's faster. Duh.