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]

This is the trick. Sure, when you account for movement speed, needed space gaps, and traffic flow on the walking side vs. the constant set rate of the escalator and including queuing time to enter the escalator on both sides, it makes sense that its probably more efficient on average for everyone. It's certainly more safe.

The neglected information OP points out is that the world doesn't operate on average time demands. Sometimes your in a hurry, sometimes you're not, so we split the distributions and allow those who are late, absolutely need to be somewhere, or are simply in a hurry to move at a faster pace. When I'm on vacation, you'll frequently see me hugging the escalator sides, casually relaxing as the escalator does the work. I have no where I have to be and no need to exhaust or stress myself. On the other hand, when I'm running late for something important, you can bet your ass I'm scurrying up the other side of the escalator because that extra 30 seconds can add up or be the difference between another queue or passing a queue.

Now, this doesn't always necessarily save you time. Often you're delayed by something constant that's out of your hands (an incoming train for example) but it certainly increases your chances of the opportunity of pushing forward quicker which when you're in a hurry, is typically a cost worth eating (at mild risks of tripping, etc.).

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:Overall speed

[arth1]

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.

It's problematic looking at just the throughput of the escalator itself. It's part of a longer pedestrian journey. By reducing the clogging on the escalator itself, you just shift it to occur on either side, so while the overall throughput figures for the escalator might be better, it's not better for the walkers.

Or think of it another way: The slower people are going to be slower no matter what - they are not held back. So it's no improvement for them. On the other hand (or foot), if they occupy both sides of an elevator, they create bottlenecks, both on the elevator itself and after getting off the elevator until they can file over to the right again.

Re:Overall speed

[Scarletdown]

if it stops and people need to walk, someone should be able to walk a bit slower and people should be able to pass.

Might just be that I am still on my first cup of coffee of the morning, but I just pictured an escalator shutting down due to a power outage, and everyone that was riding on the right side taking a step to the left side and all politely walking up single file, leaving the right side as empty as the left was when power was still on.

Re:Overall speed

[PCM2]

I think I saw some research that actually when using both sides of escalator it actually increases the amount of people goes though.

I would dispute this. I've never seen anyone willingly stand to the left of a complete stranger. They only do it when some idiot in front of them has forgotten how to climb stairs.

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?

Re:Idoits

[omnichad]

These are probably up/down escalator sets both going the same direction. One side is just standing and the other is used by walkers. I think they could just make it so that walking is only permitted when there's no congestion and everyone is happy.

Re:Full cost/benefit analysis please

[omnichad]

This isn't for safety. It's to reduce lines of people waiting on the escalator. Maybe you've never been somewhere that busy before?

Stairs

[alvinrod]

Maybe this is a stupid question, but why not just take the stairs if you're in a hurry? Maybe it's different in Japan or there are a few locations where this doesn't hold true, but I'm assuming that there's a perfectly good set of stairs that can be used instead of escalators. If I'm in a hurry in an airport, I'll almost always take the stairs because they get a lot less traffic and they're often more than wide enough to allow plenty of space to go around people.

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.

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.

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:trivially proven not true

[chispito]

Have you ever been in, or at least seen pictures of, a busy Japanese station in rush hour? If you have, I am not sure why you would say

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.

Re:trivially proven not true

[FormOfActionBanana]

... minimize wait on entry. This is likely never true ...

You have the insight to see the exact problem and you are wrong. The big clod of people waiting to step on the escalator is exactly the place where the problem is solved.

This was done really poorly in London by the way. They painted footsteps on the treads, and they showed a lame hologram poster of a person gesturing silently to the escalator. WTF! And then they called it a failure because nobody stood on the left.

There is one and only one excellent way to enforce this. Staff in purple suits stand on the left, riding up and down the escalators in shifts. You only need one standee to block the entire escalator! So, three per escalator hall is plenty, plus one person with a can of pepper spray at the top/bottom to explain to angry people to take the stairs. The thing about this temp job is it doesn't take any skills. Perhaps you only need to be pretty, or big and muscular, and the uniforms can have an informative sign on the back.

Note, the solution would only bring us to the next problem, which is can these escalators actually carry two full people-columns worth of load? In the 2018 Black Hat conference in Las Vegas, we witnessed that most of the escalators were overtaxed and the friction drives slipped (fat Americans don't walk up the escalator).

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.

frankfurt airport reserve left side for walker

[aepervius]

It even has symbol painted on the ground showing right side as immobile and left side as walking. Frankly most people also stick to right side even when not prescribed e.g. frankfurt hbf people stick to the right side or go to the right side when they hear you climbing.

Re:Idoits

[BlazeMiskulin]

Not just in Japan. I've been to quite a few countries in Asia, and the escalators are all "double-wide". In most places I've been, there are actually signs that say some version of "stand on the right, walk on the left".