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Lift Passenger Demand in Office Buildings: Focus On Traffic Analysis
Lift Passenger Demand in Office Buildings: Focus On Traffic Analysis
Lift Passenger Demand in Office Buildings: Focus On Traffic Analysis
Traffic Analysis
Traffic Analysis
of this paper, believe this building and its pattern of traffic
demand to be typical of major city office buildings during
this period. It was generally believed that the most demand-
ing traffic type was the morning up-peak. This belief was
reinforced by research conducted by Barney that showed
that lifts have between 20-60% more capacity during non
up-peak conditions.[4]
It has been assumed by many in the lift industry that
most office buildings had a pattern of passenger demand
similar to those in Figures 1 and 2. Many papers have
been written about how lift dispatchers should handle the
different types of traffic apparent during the working day:
up-peak, down-peak, lunch and balanced two way.[5] Addi-
tional papers have been written about methods to either
predict or detect the type of traffic that existed so that the
appropriate dispatching algorithm could be applied.[6]
Anyone who has visited major cities over the last 40
years can likely attest to the fact that many things have
changed. One may reasonably question how applicable a
passenger demand pattern that existed more than 40
years ago is to a present-day building.
Modern Buildings
How people use lifts and the traffic patterns that their
use generates has changed since 1923, when Basset
Jones published formulae for the expected number of
stops a car will make during a round trip.[4] Summarizing
the results of a series of peak-time traffic surveys carried
www.tuvamerica.com out between 1993 and 1997, Peters Research Ltd. con-
cluded that morning traffic peaks are less marked in
One Stop to Market buildings than they were when traditional up-peak design
criteria were formulated. In work-related buildings occupied
during the day, the busiest period appears to be over the
You only need to make one stop for all your lunch period.[7] In 2002, Bruce Powell, discussing modern
global certification needs, because we’re the office buildings, states, “Two-way traffic at noontime is
often a more severe test of elevators than up-peak.”[8]
only organization offering AECO certification
In 2000, M. Siikonen presented a traffic pattern that
for your product with accreditation both through represents traffic measured in a modern installation.[9]
ANSI and SCC, along with being a Notified Body Siikonen presented data as a stacked area graph, but for
for the EU Lift Directive. You only need to make consistency with Figures 1 and 2, the same data is pre-
sented in Figure 3 showing incoming and outgoing traffic
one call to find the ultimate combination of separately. This pattern is quite different from that pre-
quality and convenience. sented by Barney and Strakosch. Siikonen shows a lunch
up-peak that is the same size as the morning up-peak.
To learn more, attend our FREE, Additionally, the down-peak at lunch is more intense
on-demand webinar at than the evening down-peak. Both the Barney and
Strakosch lunch periods show a down-peak followed by
www.tuvamerica.com/AECOwebinar.
an up-peak, which is followed by smaller down- and up-
peaks. These double peaks do not occur in the Siikonen
TÜV SÜD America, Inc. pattern. These observations raise the question, “Are the
10 Centennial Drive Peabody, MA 01960
O
differences in the patterns due to the unique nature of the
building studied by Siikonen, or have traffic patterns
changed over the years?”
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Figure 4: Passenger demand based on manual traffic surveys Visit Our Showroom At
Automatic Counts
It is difficult to automatically count the number of pas-
www.quickcabs.com
sengers using lifts with conventional control systems
with up and down call buttons on the landings,[2] as they
1-855-767-2361
Continued
September 2011 | ELEVATOR WORLD | 115
Focus on Continued
Traffic Analysis
STOP CORROSION
only count calls, and there is often more than one person
The UNION-GARD 160 SYSTEM behind a call. With a destination-control system (DCS),
Thousands of installations including the: each passenger registers which floor he or she wants to
White House & travel to on the landing. A DCS based on the estimated
time of delivery algorithm[12] was used to log the opera-
Statue of Liberty!
tion of the lifts, including every destination call. The
logged data was replayed in Peters Research’s ELEVATE®
UNION-GARD 160: simulation program mapping destination calls to people,
1) Meets the “new” A.S.M.E. A17.1 resulting in an estimate of passenger demand.[13]
codes for corrosion protection for Figures 5-7 record the estimated passenger demand
buried hydraulic jacks.
for the three groups of passenger lifts in a corporate
2) 25 years of continuous protection
headquarters building in the U.S.
history
Plotting data for a whole week demonstrates a high
3) Protects the environment; minimizes
liability level of consistency in passenger demand. Each group has
4) Ease of installation a recognizable passenger-demand pattern or “signature.”
Up-Peak Traffic
Find out how the Union-Gard 160 System
can work for you and your customers. In modern buildings, there is often a significant
Contact: amount of outgoing traffic during the morning incoming
up-peak. A major contributor to this is people traveling to
UNION-GARD
a Division of Dome Services L.L.C. the main lobby or to a staff restaurant. A common practice
Continued
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email: protection@uniongard.com
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Visit our website or contact our sales force for more detailed information.
Traffic Analysis
is for a person to arrive for the first time at his or her desk
after taking the lift up, as they want to be seen as having
arrived by their superiors and coworkers. They then take
the lift back down, make their purchases and return to
their workstation by taking the lift up. This process in-
volves two incoming trips and one outgoing trip.
Ring Communications, Inc has the The trend to ban smoking in public and work places
most advanced, self-monitoring, fully has also been noted by building managers to increase the
integrated, easy to use elevator inter-
com system in the world. Our newest outgoing demand during the morning incoming up-peak
feature, off-premise transfer capabilities, period. On average, the mix of traffic in modern buildings
can be programmed with up to four during the morning up-peak was found to be approxi-
telephone numbers. If a busy signal
or ring-no-answer is encountered,the mately 85% incoming, 10% outgoing and 5% interfloor.
next number is automatically dialed Lunch Traffic
until the call is answered. When the call
Siikonen explains part of the differences from Barney
goes through, a recorded message is
played, providing location identifica- and Strakosch’s classical representations by stating,
tion, and a conversation can start. “Flexible working hours creates a heavy down-peak
Our philosophy is to provide the before lunch hour.”[9] The “lunch hour” is actually nearer
highest quality internal communication two hours. It is not unusual for the incoming traffic and
and security systems that are extremely outgoing traffic at lunchtime to be of the same order of
innovative, yet practical. We offer a
full array of small and large systems magnitude as the incoming traffic in the morning up- peak,
with built-in flexibility and customiza- Continued
tion capabilities.
Fast Track
Delivery
Available
Traffic Analysis
dedicated to clerical tasks. For example, typing pools
were common, but in a modern building, there are virtu-
ally no typewriters. People generate their own correspon-
dence using e-mail and word processing programs. Cler-
ical workers have been replaced by knowledge workers
and by workers who have more customer interface. Cler-
ical workers were more likely to have fixed working
hours, which contributed to higher morning and evening
traffic peaks.
In recent years, increased globalization has led to a
change in working patterns. Business is now conducted Figure 11: Passenger demand range for major office buildings
across international time zones, and working hours have
Conclusions
become more flexible to encompass this. The traditional
◆ The pattern of passenger demand measured in our
9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. working day has given way to a 24-
surveys closely resembles the traffic results presented
hour working environment, and as a result, demand for
by Siikonen.
lift services has also changed.
◆ Traffic in modern office buildings is markedly different
New Design Criteria
from that of the past.
The highest demand is seen in buildings with small ◆ While peak traffic periods still exist today, the ampli-
populations. This is because fewer people represent a tude of those peaks is not as great, and the duration is
higher percentage of the building population. These longer. Total passenger demand is normally (but not
peaks are not sustained, and are thus manageable with- always) greater at lunchtime than during the morning
out specific design. Figure 11 shows the range of total up-peak. Major down-peaks are rarely seen.
passenger demand measured in a major office with an ◆ Lift-control systems should be designed to detect and
observed population in excess of 1,000 people. Total de- manage the new patterns of passenger demand in
mand includes incoming, outgoing and interfloor traffic. modern buildings.
In most modern office buildings, there is a greater de- ◆ Selection of new lift systems should be based on modern
mand at lunchtime than in the morning. However, both data as opposed to historical measurements of passen-
morning and lunch periods need to be considered as part ger demand. In many instances, this will result in smaller
of the design process. In the morning, the lifts are most and more energy-efficient lifts being specified.
crowded, as people are mostly traveling in one direction References
[1] Strakosch, G. The Vertical Transportation Handbook. 3rd ed., Elevators
and are in the car together. At lunchtime, incoming and and Escalators. New York: Wiley; 1998.
outgoing traffic are not in the car together, which makes [2] CIBSE, The Chartered Institution of Building Services Engineers. CIBSE
Guide D: Transportation Systems in Buildings, Norwich: CIBSE; 2005.
the cars less crowded (provided that the building is not [3] Barney, G. & Dos Santos, S. Lift Traffic Analysis Design and Control.
under-lifted). However, at lunchtime, the cars stop more London: Pereginus; 1977.
[4] Barney, G. Elevator Traffic Handbook. London: Spon Press; 2003.
often, leading to longer waiting times. [5] Bahajt Z & Bittar J, Inventor; Otis. Automated selection of high traffic
intensity algorithms for up-peak period. U.S. patent number
5,168,133. December 1, 1993.
[6] Qun, Z.; Ming S.; and Ling, T. “Elevator Traffic-Flow Prediction Based
on Gaussian Mixture Model.” ELEVATOR WORLD, 2006.
[7] Peters, R.D. Vertical Transportation Planning in Buildings. British Library
reference DX199632 (1998)
[8] Powell, B. “Elevator Planning and Analysis on the Web.” Elevator
WORLD, 2002.
[9] Siikonen, M. Elevator Technology 10, IAEE, Israel, 2000
[10] Peters Research Ltd., private client reports.
[11] Peters, R. & Evans, E. “Measuring and Simulating Elevator Passen-
gers in Existing Buildings.” Elevator Technology 17: Proceedings of
ELEVCON 2008 (The International Association of Elevator Engineers).
[12] Smith, R. and Peters, R. ETD Algorithm with Destination Dispatch
and Booster Options. ELEVATOR WORLD, 2002.
[13] Peters, R. & Smith, R. “Analysis of Elevator Performance and Passen-
ger Demand with Destination Control.” Elevator Technology 17, IAEE,
Israel, 2008.
[14] Wikipedia. Fast Food. [Cited July 21, 2007].
[15] How Stuff Works. The History of Fast Food. [Cited July 21, 2007].
[16] BBC. Eating Out Overtakes Home Dinning. [Cited July 21, 2007]
[17] DHL company Portrait [Cited December 6, 2008]
Figure 10: High rise passenger demand signature [18] FedEx History. [Cited December 6, 2008]