Hacker News Reader

Comment by jrockway | Hacker News Reader

Incidentally, the door close button does work in Japan. And you can cancel erroneous floor selections.

(The funny part is that the elevators are made by the same companies that make them for the US market. But they seem to be "updated technology" rather than the 1930s-holdovers that we have today.)

The most modern elevator system I've used is the one at the new Bank of America Tower. You type the number of the floor you want to go to on a keypad, then the display tells you which elevator to take. You go in, and there are no buttons at all. It seems cumbersome, but it really does seem to reduce waiting time. (And annoying people that hold the elevator for all their friends. These elevators just smash the offender, solving the problem for good.)

View on HN

Haven't seen an Otis in Tokyo yet. Not that I look very closely. Lots of Mitsubishis.

Every time an article like this gets posted, I'm a little surprised that there is no mention whatsoever about the international angle. "the close door button doesn't work," [IN the US].

Many elevators in Tokyo simply will not close until someone presses close.

In my building the elevator doesn't even know to return to the lobby when idle :(

Returning to the lobby means you're in the right place half the time (roughly -- I for one use the elevator to go up more than to go down). Anywhere else has much worse odds.

Many buildings with multiple evelators are programmed to return to a stagger position, so all of the idle elevators are at least one floor apart if not evenly distributed across the whole height of the building. The closest idle elevator responds to a call button.

This is easiest to observe in builds with glass elevators.

SimTower was a great elevator simulator. If you spend any amount of time with the game you realize that a staggered approach is more efficient.

It's too bad there aren't more games in the genre. It might be fun to experiment with more types of traffic flow and programmable elevators.

It may be more convenient for the end-user, but it would raise running costs significantly.

If the elevator is needed at the lobby 50% of the time, means it is also needed elsewhere 50% of the time. It means that 50% of the time the lift is travelling to the lobby and then back to a needed floor empty. If it only moves when called then it only ever travels the difference between its end point and new start point which is AT MOST the number of floors in the building.

If every floor is accessed equally (as you'd expect), then 50% of the time the elevator needs to travel half the height of the building (on average) TWICE when it goes into idle state. The average of this method is equal to the maximum of the other...or something.

....but then I haven't had my morning coffee yet.

In most high-rise buildings, the stairs are not usable for normal travel (evacuation only). So people go up as often as they go down.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com