4 ms·

All escalators go up AND down - it's the direction of the side that is on the top that you notice as a user. Also, they aren't powered by gravity but by motors

• danbruc 4y ago
  If they were friction less, they would be in balance without passengers and would start moving downwards with passengers stepping onto them at the top. And could theoretically move a lighter group of passengers on another escalator upwards. In practice it seems very unlikely that one could make this work with reasonable effort. It already starts with the fact that you are probably not going to have well balanced streams of passengers in both directions most of the time.
  • midasuni 4y ago
    Over the course of a day across the system the number of passenger-kg going up will be roughly about the same as the number going down. More going up in the morning, more going down in the evening.
• ajsnigrutin 4y ago
  But the escalators carrying the people "down" have the help of the gravity pulling all those people down and the motor works mostly as a brake...if the motors fails, it speeds up: https://www.reddit.com/r/WTF/comments/uegc45/escalator_breaks_causing_it_to_speed_up_out_of/ https://www.reddit.com/r/WTF/comments/uegc45/escalator_break... So, if the motor worked as a generator too, it would only use power when turning the empty escalator (because of friction), but when enough people are standing on it, it could actually generate power.
• amelius 4y ago
  That's irrelevant. The sign of the power needed/received for moving passengers up/down depends on the direction of the escalator as viewed by the user.