5 ms·
The biggest problem I always have with elevators is not the algorithm, it's the people seemingly being unable to grasp the concept of pressing either the up or
by olex 2mo ago
The biggest problem I always have with elevators is not the algorithm, it's the people seemingly being unable to grasp the concept of pressing either the up or the down request button, depending on where they want to go. Almost always I find someone will press both, because "then the elevator comes faster". Completely ignoring the fact that they end up going the wrong way first half the time, and adding an unnecessary halt for everyone already in there. How hard can it be to understand?..
- Georgelemental 2mo agoI don't think I've ever seen someone do that
- deleted 2mo ago[deleted]
- summermusic 2mo agoI haven't ever seen anyone do this in the United States, but I saw it in China and Italy.
- esperent 2mo agoI've never seen anyone do this anywhere in the world including Italy. I've never been to China but wouldn't you learn quickly after getting in an elevator going the wrong way not to do that again? The only exception I can see if there's way more people than elevators and you just need to get spot at all costs.
- the_af 2mo agoMy wife always randomly hits the up or down button, then gets upset if I explain why she should only pick the one she really wants. She forgets the next time. I think some people never really understand how elevators work. See also: the keep open / close doors button. I had one building administrator explain to me we should add a delay of 10 seconds to the "quickly shut door" button because otherwise she kept getting her arm hit by the door. When I asked why we would add a delay to the button that's meant to reduce delays (why not simply wait for the door to close on its own, then?), and whether we should fix the sensor that prevents doors from closing if there's an obstacle instead, she just kept staring blankly at me. I don't think she understood me at all. Again, some people simply don't grasp how elevators work.
- superhuzza 2mo agoI fear in both cases, its not a lack of understanding of elevators but of common sense...
- contingencies 2mo agoFor these people, replace the buttons entirely with a voice-activated destination request on proximity.
- superhuzza 2mo agoFull circle back to elevator operators!
- chuckadams 2mo agoMore like Star Trek turbolifts. Make them grab the handle first for that TOS feel.
- contingencies 2mo agoPrimarily this fixes the bug in the interface which is allowing the user to input data that does not match their declared destination. However, a second benefit is that you can then obtain per-user destination information, which is useful in capacity planning and currently lost in shared direction-only button pressing. Finally, you could usefully use non-floor specifications, ie. 'Ladies underwear', 'ACME Co.', etc.
- brookst 2mo agoThis reminds me of my partner, who always sets car air conditioning to 50F (the min) or heat to 90F (the max) because she thinks it makes it get cold or hot faster. And of course a few minutes later we’re freezing or roasting. She sees the temps setting as controlling intensity of cold/hot rather than just, you know, the temperature you want.
- deleted 2mo ago[deleted]
- tamimio 2mo agoBecause most buildings now they just put one button so people stop clicking both
- what 2mo agoWhat? I’ve never seen that. The elevator needs to know which way you want to go.
- allannienhuis 2mo agoOn the ground/lowest floor, there's only one button as there's only one way to go.
- cozzyd 2mo agoi just saw this for the first time today in Romania...
- userbinator 2mo agoIt doesn't; it just needs to know it was called. You make your selection once it arrives. Look up the early history of elevators and you'll see a progression from fully manual in-car up/down controls (often with a dedicated human operator); various semi-automatic systems with minor improvements like automatic leveling and door control; and then operatorless systems that started with nondirectional calls: https://liftescalatorlibrary.org/paper_indexing/papers/00000073.pdf https://liftescalatorlibrary.org/paper_indexing/papers/00000...
- Ekaros 2mo agoIt is reasonable if you either have low load say a residential building where lift is often idle. Or low number of floors where travel times in either case are short.
- trivo 2mo agoAnd then when the elevator door opens, they ask the people inside: "Are you going up or down?" There's an arrow showing that, for Christ's sake.
- themaninthedark 2mo agoTrue but sometimes someone hits a button on the inside by mistake. Or someone was going to get off then decides not to.
- SoMomentary 2mo agoSometimes I think "stupid" questions like these are just a way to break the ice, something that gets used to kindly acknowledge the momentary existence of others in our lives before we continue down our separate paths.
- deathanatos 2mo ago… and the elevator is still going the way it is going, and that way is still indicated by the illuminated arrow.
- wpm 2mo agoYeah and you can flail your head around looking for the arrow or you can just ask. Especially on a busy elevator lobby there might be multiple cars opening at the same time so you cant even tell from the ding/ding-ding
- ImPostingOnHN 2mo agoor just point your eyes a few degrees away to look at the dedicated arrows next to each elevator, built for this exact use case, which indicate whether that specific elevator is going up or down? I have to assume this is a cultural difference and you just don't have those indicators where you live, rather than "slightly moving my eyes is too hard, better make my problem into somebody else's problem"
- gabrieledarrigo 2mo ago
- davnicwil 2mo agoIn situations like this the answer usually comes by flipping it and assuming they do understand, and asking why it makes sense now. It's probably just the old 'fake loader' psychology, to be honest. Waiting without knowing when the elevator will arrive is boring/frustrating, where getting into an elevator that moves, even if the wrong direction, feels like progress. Things are happening, and even if it takes longer ultimately that's a less frustrating state to be in.
- ivanjermakov 2mo agoElevator algorithm I'm used to always goes up from lobby and always goes down from any other floor. Meaning that it goes all the way to the highest order and picks orders top-down until reaching lobby. Only exception is going to underground parking floors which is relatively rare in my housing complex.
- gene91 2mo agoIn some places, I see people do that. It’s not stupidity. I learned the logical reason after observations. During busy hours in some busy buildings, there isn’t enough elevator capacity. Therefore, if you want to go down to the ground floor, taking a trip up and then down might be better (a less-bad worst case outcome, or even a better average outcome) than waiting for a non-full downward elevator. In such case, it’s logical to press both up and down.
- vel0city 2mo agoWhen you're at a lower floor and you're trying to go down, but its a time period where traffic is trying to leave you can end up in a situation where nearly every elevator going down is already full. So you call for down, cab arrives but is already full, it goes, you call again, another comes, its already full, rinse/repeat. Sometimes there's not much up traffic during that time, so it can be a legit strategy to just go ahead and call on the up and ride it all the way instead of waiting and hoping for space coming down. Although I guess that's not quite what you're talking about.
- qurren 2mo agoI often enter it in the wrong direction. Like let's say elevator is at 5, I am at 1 wanting to go to 3, and before I arrive there is already someone else at 1 wanting to go to -1. I'll get in with them going DOWN so that it doesn't have to stop a 2nd time on the way up. There are also other situations where I'll press it in the wrong direction if I think it's already likely to stop on the way down (due to me being on a popular floor) to save an extra stop on the way back up.
- kccqzy 2mo agoThat’s great, but a lot of buildings don’t tell you where the elevator currently is when you are about to press the button.
- donalhunt 2mo agoI live in Ireland. 10+ years ago I used to the travel to the US quite a bit (5-10 trips a year). The majority of the time I would fly via a major EU hub like AMS or CDG even if there was a direct flight from Ireland. The reason? Other factors that were important to me! Examples: - cost optimisation. I could fly business within company budget rules. - flight time. I highly valued longer flight times between Europe and the US west coast so I got a proper night's sleep when flying east-bound. Doing connections on the east coast often meant quite short transatlantic flights that arrived very early in the morning. Much harder to manage the jetlag. - Product offering. Some of the routes from AMS and CDG had much newer planes and cabins. - Airline alliance loyalty. Given the travel pattern it meant sense to pick an alliance that delivered some value. Irish airlines didn't have much to offer and were much more expensive for a worse end to end product.
- ericpauley 2mo agoThe difference is nobody is getting loyalty status on their elevator.
- dsego 2mo agoYes, same here, in croatia people believe that you need to press the opposite direction to "summon" the elevator, if the elevator is on lower floor they will press the "up" arrow to bring it up to their floor. And then of course when the doors open they will ask "going up or down?", which is ridiculous. When I point out that the ground floor only has the "up" button they just ignore it (hard to unlearn ingrained beliefs).
- nubg 2mo ago> in croatia people believe that you need to press the opposite direction to "summon" the elevator, if the elevator is on lower floor they will press the "up" arrow to bring it up to their floor this is hilarious
- newtwentysix 2mo agoOMG ! This is a huge problem in India. Frustrating.