3 ms·

Very interesting... if Hitachi did go past the prototype stage, it could indeed be the answer... Video from the link (in Japanese): https://www.youtube.com/wa

• jacquesm 11y ago
  Paternosters have been used in the past but usually were discontinued because of (gruesome) accidents. There were a couple in Amsterdam in my childhood.
  • GFischer 11y ago
    Yes, the old versions (where there were periods in which someone could fall into a shaft) look dangerous. The Hitachi version is interesting because it incorporates the behaviour one expects from standard elevators, at the cost of some speed. It sounds ideal for a mass transit station, and it could use the same pattern as is currently used for subways (a small time it remains motionless, then the doors close after a beep). I found an English version of their video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mnX5WZhvzZY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mnX5WZhvzZY and ThysenKrupp is also working on a similar idea: http://rt.com/news/210143-maglev-horizontal-elevator-thyssenkrupp/ http://rt.com/news/210143-maglev-horizontal-elevator-thyssen... Though Hitachi has decided to focus on speed instead: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/ist/?next=/smart-news/worlds-fastest-elevator-will-be-built-china-180951203/ http://www.smithsonianmag.com/ist/?next=/smart-news/worlds-f... I hope the innovation in this space doesn't dry out :)
    • dredmorbius 11y ago
      Falling into shafts is bad. Getting stuck between car and floor strikes me as rather worse. I'm familiar with a few such incidents (friends were witnesses, I, fortunately, was not), with conventional elevators, overloaded. The screaming, and then lack, is apparently something not easily forgotten.