Smart Elevators Coming to Seattle

coaxial writes "Fujitec has unveiled a new elevator system for Seattle's Metropolitan Park West Tower. The new system uses touchpanels to group users by destination. Riders may wait slightly longer for the proper car, but the overall ride is shortened because the car stops less."

This is NOT New technology...

[RedLeg]

The elevators in the Marriott Marquis on Times Square work exactly like this, and they have been there for a while.

--RED

Re:Hey, that's my idea! More things to consider...

[generic-man]

I think the BING sounds are for the benefit of blind riders, who can count the number of BINGs to determine which floor they're on. The same goes for the one-BING-for-up, two-BING-for-down tones that accompany each door opening.

not everyone is so impressed...

[bigbigbison]

When they changed the elevators at the Marriott Marquis Times Square, not everyone [newmediamusings.com] was impressed [weblogs.com].

Re:Hey, that's my idea! More things to consider...

[Animats]

• On/off toggle in the elevator. It's a standard Otis option, but it's not ordered much.
• Early elevator arrival notification. Tell me which elevator will be the one I'll be entering. It's common to have lobby level "This car up" signs, controlled by the dispatching system. But above the lobby level, it's rare.
• VIP floor access That's more common than you might think. It's called a "priority hall call station" in the elevator industry, and is usually an RFID or swipe card reader.

Re:Real World may hold surprises

[BinaryOpty]

The system, at least from the blurb, seems to squeeze people into elevators by floors, so instead of stopping on every floor the way up you just stop on one or two. Since elevators have size and weight constraints, this means the elevator needs to know how many people want to go to a particular floor so it can fill the elevator properly. If it didn't have this data it would have to assume the amount of people, and assumption is not a good thing when it comes to elevators.

Re:Oh God...

[ch-chuck]

Our local pharmacy chain changed their telephone ordering system - it used to just ask you to wait while it retrives your records. Now it asks you to wait, then goes "wocka wocka wocka wocka" instead of dead silence, I guess to let old ladies know something was happening. Frankly, I'd rather it said "Working" in a Star Trek computer voice then make a bunch of cliche' SciFi computer beeps. That should be an option when you open an account, select your automated telephone reordering system theme ;)

Re:who's the stupid one

[Baikala]

This system works for an office building like the one I work in (we have it since last summer) where every body understand how it works and there are security people to explain the system to the ocational visitor. For a public access location like an hotel where 90% of the people is new every week it's a nigthmare.

Re:This is NOT New technology...

[Anonymous Coward]

I've seen a similar lift in Sydney. Each user is supposed to enter their destination floor on the panel and then be directed to the correct lift. The problem arises during busy times when a group of people arrive all bound for the same floor. The first person enters their destination then they all go and stand by the lift. As the software thinks there is only one person waiting it derects more people to that lift. When it arrives there is an almighty crush to get in some are left behind to repeat the process.