As cities grow vertically, elevators become the corner stone to support this development and the life line for the buildings that constitute this development. Yet this is not reflected in the approach to the design of the total vertical transportation solutions in India. In most cases the vertical transportation configuration is determined by one or varying combinations of the two criteria and two considerations – past experience, supplier’s standards, economic considerations and architectural considerations.

Past experience:
Past experiences and references are good base for most decisions including vertical transportation requirements. However the reference to the experience has to be in totality. In reality this totality is impossible as no two buildings scenario can be exact – the changes could be occupation pattern, socio – economic time frame, the population character etc.

Two examples illustrate this –

• The Stock Exchange, Mumbai: People who have visited the impressive P J Jeejabhoy building through the 80s and the 90s would remember the serpentine queues to get to the lift. However the change from ring based trading to web based trading, saw the number of visitors to the building drop dramatically.
• Call Centers: The advent of call centers probably demonstrates the extreme change to building population thumb rules.

While the Stock Exchange scenario is a rarity, present day inter floor and 24x7 commercial operations, not only affect elevator traffic analysis thumb rules, but also blow away the 240 stops per hour (in some cases even less than 180 stops per hour) design and life span criteria for the elevator components.

The socio – economic impact can also be seen in the residential segment with major changes in the traditional traffic patterns.

In earlier days, most households managed with one full time domestic help. The new trend is task oriented “multiple” helping hands with multiple trips to the apartments through the day.

A study of a 2 bedrooms apartment indicated four domestic helps making 6 visits. This was in addition to the regular 4 delivery boys (covering newspapers, magazines, milk and bread) the car cleaner and the driver. Additionally the apartment also had frequent courier and pizza deliveries.

Even the movement of the occupants have increased with multiple activities through-out the day and not just limited to the morning and the evening rush hours. The children for instance are engaged in tuition visits and multiple extra curricular activities in addition to their school schedules.

Supplier’s standards:
With increasing competition, most businesses have been pushed to standardization to achieve cost reductions. The Elevators & Escalators (E&E) suppliers too have not been different.

Yet the problem arises as these standard specifications have been derived from either historical assumptions or international assumptions. Both are out of place in the Indian context.

For instance, the Indian Standards prescribes lift capacity standards as 68Kgs per individual and a space “not to exceed” 0.17 to 0.19 m2 per person. On the other hand, the international norms assumes different individual sizes, that individuals will not crowd into an elevator, that the area per person on a floor plate will be liberal and resulting lower starts per hour.

It becomes even more complex depending on whether these standards were derived from the East or the West. And if from the West, whether they originated in Europe or in the Americas.

It also needs to be kept in mind that it is but natural that each supplier would have their bias towards what suits their product offering.

While the E&E market in India is growing, in comparison to world markets like China the Indian market is small (so are the quality and service demands) and developing a product specifically for India is not a priority for most of the industry majors.

Economic considerations:
It is understandable that developers would have financial priorities when deciding elevator specifications.

This trend gets encouragement with the statutory regulations making manual door elevators an acceptable norm.

The downside of this is that many building owners and occupants are stuck with manual door elevators even if they want to change as they would be restricted by smaller hoist way sizes that were considered at the initial stage for manual door elevators.

Considering that longevity is rising, it is common that urban buildings have a number of walking stick or wheel chair dependent senior citizens. Not to mention that more handicapped individuals are independent and mobile.

Interestingly when the world and India are moving towards handicapped and elderly friendly environments, the Indian E&E industry has not done enough to push for change in this basic requirement. Not to mention that legislation has not been too helpful either.

Economic considerations also force borderline design assumptions leaving no leeway for any change in the building characteristics. There are numerous instances of building owners desperately searching for solutions to add additional hoist ways and elevators, capacities, speeds etc. Majority of these have ended as exercises in futility.

Architectural considerations:
Unless a show piece of the building, the vertical transportation solution at times find low priority in the planning stages of a building. In such cases the solution is just fitted into the building after accommodating all the other architectural priorities, with little attention to traffic analysis and simulation, the optimum circulation patterns within the building and the required locational priority.

The result is an under elevatored building through wrong specifications or straight forward inadequacy, wrong locations or lobbies etc. In various combinations and proportions, the resultant solution can be very expensive yet very inadequate.

Notwithstanding the cautionary footnotes, the wide availability of standardized product brochures and drawings encourage this trend.

In fact there are numerous instances where the solution has been finalized (and sold) just on basis of the standardized product brochure and without reference to project details - some very prominent landmarks stand testimony to this fact.

No substitute for Vertical Transportation Analysis
No doubt the criteria and considerations mentioned above have their merits as a “quick” thumb rule for establishing the vertical transportation solution. They however cannot be a substitute for a full fledged vertical transportation analysis for arriving at the appropriate solution. After all they are just pointers meant to compare recommendations and not an end in itself.

The reluctance to undertake the required detailed analysis can be traced to the fact that the science of vertical transportation analysis is complex and can take a life time to master. In fact most E&E companies do not even include traffic analysis as part of their induction or training program for their engineers.

Not surprising considering that Dr Gina Barney’s book on the subject is a 3 pounder consisting of 500 pages, not to mention George Strakosch’s bible for the elevator industry, both popular subject references. Engineers (particularly sales engineers) would prefer shifting industries than invest time in understanding this “not so lucrative” subject, let alone master it.

All major E&E companies and some consultancy firms have proprietary software for transportation analysis. However as rightfully said by one of India’s prominent developers and supported by a very senior engineer from India’s largest construction company, each elevator company ends up with varying recommendations. Understandably their arguments have to be favoring their product offering.

On the other hand software tools are available from independent traffic analysis experts. Elevate from UK based Peters Research is probably one of the prominent and powerful tools available today.

While any such tool will give “some” results, it cannot be expected to interpret the analysis or arrive at the final solution. Not to mention that the establishing the primary data for the analysis itself is a specialist job requiring extensive experience and understanding – if the data you use for the analysis is garbage, what you get will be garbage.

And not just traffic analysis results
Even if the vertical transportation requirements were established on basis of detailed (and unbiased) traffic analysis calculations, the absence of further collaboration to establish the circulation patterns and optimum locations, configurations, access routes, lobby sizes and layouts, improper zoning etc diminish the efficacy of the vertical transportation solution. In short optimization cannot be achieved without integration of the vertical transportation requirements and logic with the horizontal transportation patterns within the building.

When extended to escalators, these factors have the potential of seriously impacting business beyond the consequences of poor traffic handling.

The Appropriate Solution
Vertical transportation analysis and design is recognized as a vital science critical to any building. The solution and the planning for the solution have to be established at the drawing board stage itself and not as an after thought. All supporting player to a project need to appreciate that rarely will you get a second chance to remedy.

The “appropriate” vertical transportation solution will be a derivation
from the requirement as per a scientific vertical traffic analysis and simulations covering all aspects that could influence the traffic handling and a balance of past experience, supplier’s standards, economic considerations and architectural priorities. Or alternatively we could look at it from the perspective that “Climbing Steps is good for Health” and drive the thriving health club industry out of business.