2016-07-10 - elevators

in high buildings there is a problem with time it takes to travel by elevators. elevator speed is one thing, but stopping on every floor is even worse, since there is no time to accelerate and doors need to remain open for a long periods of time on each floor.

it is usually mitigated by adding more elevator shafts. recently i though about doing this in a bit different manner. how about adding more shafts, but each elevator would stop every N-th floor. for instance having 30 floors and 3 shafts (i.e. N=3):

• elevator 1 would stop on floors 1, 4, 7, etc…
• elevator 2 would stop on floors 2, 5, 8, etc…
• elevator 3 would stop on floors 3, 6, 9, etc…

this way each set of floors would have dedicated elevator, this from each elevators' PoV it would be as if building had just 10 (in general: one N-th) floors. travel speeds could be much higher, w/o loosing a comfort of smooth speed ups and breaking. also, on average less ppl would travel by each elevator, thus reducing power needed to move around.

of course, since most ppl do need to access ground floor, it would have to be common for all elevators (as an exception).

how to operate that? it's simple – just press the button (outside of the elevator!), saying where you want to go, and you'll be given shaft number to await at. then just wait for a proper elevator to arrive. when your elevator arrives, you just enter it and travel. as a free bonus - since the elevator already knows where you're heading (you've selected the floor when requesting an elevator), there is no need to squeeze through group of ppl, just to press the button. in fact – the only button such elevator needs to have inside are an emergency stop and a call for service. :)