7 ms·

+1 for the elevator anxiety. In my case there were no buttons inside the lift!! Really, nothing. One had to select your floor BEFORE entering the lift.

jpatokal 10y ago
That's called a destination control system, and it works that way because of the massive efficiency gains of letting the elevators work out who should go where.
- slavik81 10y ago
  Efficiency gains are a big deal, too. Consider that even being able to get away with one fewer elevator saves space on every floor of the building. The taller the building, the more valuable it is.
- sheraz 10y ago
  Link to video describing said system: https://youtu.be/WTIXVS0620Y https://youtu.be/WTIXVS0620Y
- lostlogin 10y ago
  What's with this? You have floor you're on and a floor you want to go to. If some else presses a button before the lift passes, pick them up too. Awfully conventional, but everyone understands it.
  - seshagiric 10y ago
    Its a havoc when there is a crowd, like the floor housing the common cafeteria/lunch place in an office building. In a group of people waiting, inadvertently someone misses out to specify their floor and panics! Also, surprisingly large no. of people make a mistake in selecting the floor they need to go to (visitors, new joinees...)
  - jpatokal 10y ago
    Until you're in one of those office buildings where everybody has lunch at exactly 12, meaning first you wait an eon to find an elevator where you can squeeze in, and then you ding-ding-ding-ding your way slowly down to the ground floor, stopping at every floor to show people that this one's also full!
    - logfromblammo 10y ago
      Couldn't you just use a weight sensor to determine whether an elevator cab is over x% of its rated capacity, and make that one ineligible to respond to external calls until after some people exit? That wouldn't require changes to the user interface, and the doors would only open if someone can actually get on. That, plus an assumption that most trips are between the ground/garage floors and one of the higher, occupied floors should be sufficient to reduce congestion without requiring someone to push a floor button before entering the cab. Adding a clock to the elevator controller would also help, such as by stationing empty cabs at the exit floors in the mornings, and distributing them among the occupied floors in the evenings. I can think of a lot of ways to improve elevator scheduling without changing the user interface, and even if I did change that, I could certainly provide some mechanism to select a specific floor without installing a touchscreen GUI. Wave your employee access RFID badge at the button panel to pick the floor where your cubicle is, for instance.
- mattkevan 10y ago
  We had those in the Centre Point tower, where I used to work. They were awful. As you swiped through the security barrier you'd be assigned a lift. However, if you missed the number or the barriers broke (which they often did) there was a good chance of getting in the wrong one. There was a public restaurant on the top floor, so the lifts frequently contained panicky people riding up and down until they eventually got to the ground floor. Also the lift systems occasionally crashed mid-journey. The lift would stop, the lights would go out and the LCD screen would blank and run through a boot sequence before everything came back up. Stephen Fry once got stuck in one of them.
  - m_mueller 10y ago
    This reads like a social experiment.
  - jpatokal 10y ago
    Sounds like you had a really beta version? The ones I've used (n=2) worked fine, and the lift assignments were done just outside the elevator, where you'd usually have the up/down buttons. As the elevators arrived, little screens on the outside showed the floors they would be stopping at. These were private office buildings though, I can definitely see the public restaurant causing havoc with its endless stream of noobs...
    - mattkevan 10y ago
      I think they're just really old - I have a vague memory of seeing an engineer armed with a 5 1/2" floppy disk. They definitely didn't do anything as fancy as showing which floors they would be stopping at. The building's now been turned into posh flats - there's no way I'd consider living there (apart from being almost infinitely out of my price range) without being sure they'd been replaced.
ddacunha 10y ago
Five years ago we moved in an brand new office with this type of elevators. It had bugs but improved over time. A traditional elevator only know where your are. This type of elevator also knows where you want to go and can optimise for passenger throughput.
- m_mueller 10y ago
  Can't they just make it such that there's still buttons inside, maybe given lower priority and some help text explaining that it's best to choose outside?

jpatokal 10y ago

That's called a destination control system, and it works that way because of the massive efficiency gains of letting the elevators work out who should go where.

slavik81 10y ago
Efficiency gains are a big deal, too. Consider that even being able to get away with one fewer elevator saves space on every floor of the building. The taller the building, the more valuable it is.
sheraz 10y ago
Link to video describing said system: https://youtu.be/WTIXVS0620Y https://youtu.be/WTIXVS0620Y
lostlogin 10y ago
What's with this? You have floor you're on and a floor you want to go to. If some else presses a button before the lift passes, pick them up too. Awfully conventional, but everyone understands it.
- seshagiric 10y ago
  Its a havoc when there is a crowd, like the floor housing the common cafeteria/lunch place in an office building. In a group of people waiting, inadvertently someone misses out to specify their floor and panics! Also, surprisingly large no. of people make a mistake in selecting the floor they need to go to (visitors, new joinees...)
- jpatokal 10y ago
  Until you're in one of those office buildings where everybody has lunch at exactly 12, meaning first you wait an eon to find an elevator where you can squeeze in, and then you ding-ding-ding-ding your way slowly down to the ground floor, stopping at every floor to show people that this one's also full!
  - logfromblammo 10y ago
    Couldn't you just use a weight sensor to determine whether an elevator cab is over x% of its rated capacity, and make that one ineligible to respond to external calls until after some people exit? That wouldn't require changes to the user interface, and the doors would only open if someone can actually get on. That, plus an assumption that most trips are between the ground/garage floors and one of the higher, occupied floors should be sufficient to reduce congestion without requiring someone to push a floor button before entering the cab. Adding a clock to the elevator controller would also help, such as by stationing empty cabs at the exit floors in the mornings, and distributing them among the occupied floors in the evenings. I can think of a lot of ways to improve elevator scheduling without changing the user interface, and even if I did change that, I could certainly provide some mechanism to select a specific floor without installing a touchscreen GUI. Wave your employee access RFID badge at the button panel to pick the floor where your cubicle is, for instance.
mattkevan 10y ago
We had those in the Centre Point tower, where I used to work. They were awful. As you swiped through the security barrier you'd be assigned a lift. However, if you missed the number or the barriers broke (which they often did) there was a good chance of getting in the wrong one. There was a public restaurant on the top floor, so the lifts frequently contained panicky people riding up and down until they eventually got to the ground floor. Also the lift systems occasionally crashed mid-journey. The lift would stop, the lights would go out and the LCD screen would blank and run through a boot sequence before everything came back up. Stephen Fry once got stuck in one of them.
- m_mueller 10y ago
  This reads like a social experiment.
- jpatokal 10y ago
  Sounds like you had a really beta version? The ones I've used (n=2) worked fine, and the lift assignments were done just outside the elevator, where you'd usually have the up/down buttons. As the elevators arrived, little screens on the outside showed the floors they would be stopping at. These were private office buildings though, I can definitely see the public restaurant causing havoc with its endless stream of noobs...
  - mattkevan 10y ago
    I think they're just really old - I have a vague memory of seeing an engineer armed with a 5 1/2" floppy disk. They definitely didn't do anything as fancy as showing which floors they would be stopping at. The building's now been turned into posh flats - there's no way I'd consider living there (apart from being almost infinitely out of my price range) without being sure they'd been replaced.

ddacunha 10y ago

Five years ago we moved in an brand new office with this type of elevators. It had bugs but improved over time. A traditional elevator only know where your are. This type of elevator also knows where you want to go and can optimise for passenger throughput.

m_mueller 10y ago
Can't they just make it such that there's still buttons inside, maybe given lower priority and some help text explaining that it's best to choose outside?