Tokyo Wants People To Stand on Both Sides of the Escalator (citylab.com) 161
When one side isn't reserved for walkers, it saves time for everyone. But transit users around the world just can't be convinced. Linda Poon, writing for CityLab: I'm one of those people who speed past everyone on the escalator. As long as the left side isn't blocked, no amount of judgement from fellow riders to the right, or safety warnings, or even falls (two and counting) will stop me -- not yet anyway. I'm certainly not alone; it's a common enough habit that some cities occasionally try to change such behavior for safety's sake. London's tried, so has Hong Kong and Washington, D.C. Now it's Tokyo's turn. East Japan Railway Company (JR East) launched a campaign this month calling on riders to stand on both sides of the escalators inside some of the city's busiest transit hubs.
Signs are posted on walls and above escalators, reading, in both Japanese and English, "Walking on escalators may lead to accidents caused by collisions or luggage." Bright pink handrails carry similar messages. And in some stations, security staff with neon-colored vests stand watch and guide people. If people are really in a hurry, JR East suggests, they should take the stairs. So far, the effort has had mixed results: According to the Japan Broadcasting Corporation (NHK), railway officials say that some people did stop but many commuters were still hustling up and down the escalator on Monday. The campaign is set to run until February 1.
Signs are posted on walls and above escalators, reading, in both Japanese and English, "Walking on escalators may lead to accidents caused by collisions or luggage." Bright pink handrails carry similar messages. And in some stations, security staff with neon-colored vests stand watch and guide people. If people are really in a hurry, JR East suggests, they should take the stairs. So far, the effort has had mixed results: According to the Japan Broadcasting Corporation (NHK), railway officials say that some people did stop but many commuters were still hustling up and down the escalator on Monday. The campaign is set to run until February 1.
Re:Idoits (Score:4, Insightful)
I guess you've never been the Japan. It's not universal but it is a very frequent habit for standers to stay to one side and walkers to freely use the other. They're not particularly wide and I'm an Amerifat but still manage not to clog up the escalator like a double-handrail-holding can't-fucking-balance jackass.
What are you doing touching the rails anyway--you want to pick up the latest cold or flu going around?
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These are probably up/down escalator sets both going the same direction. One side is just standing and the other is used by walkers. I think they could just make it so that walking is only permitted when there's no congestion and everyone is happy.
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These are probably up/down escalator sets both going the same direction. One side is just standing and the other is used by walkers. I think they could just make it so that walking is only permitted when there's no congestion and everyone is happy.
And that would be a "social contract" kind of thing, where society's social norms would need to be adjusted. That's hard to do.
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These are probably up/down escalator sets both going the same direction.
No, in Japan the escalators in the subways are mostly wide enough for a double-file line on the same escalator.
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It's known as a general courtesy around the globe that this is how it's done and if you block the left you're a bloody cunt.
City governments may be looking at uneven wear patterns on bearings, rollers or belts that an escalator uses. I am guessing that keeping maintenance cycles down they would be saving money. I think it's in the cities best interest to let the faster people out front instead of forcing 300+ people cross the intersection at the same time.
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City governments may be looking at uneven wear patterns on bearings, rollers or belts that an escalator uses. I am guessing that keeping maintenance cycles down they would be saving money.
That's a valid point. But there's an easy solution to that: Alternate the sides. A lot of highways in the US have signs that say "Trucks use X lane". That lane changes to move the heavy vehicles to different lanes (and, thereby, extending the life of the road). It would be a simple (and cheap) solution to have digital signs that say "Stand on X side, Walk on Y side".
And... now you've tweaked my "inner engineer" to wonder which side puts more stress on the system. The "standing" lane is a constant, sta
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Overall speed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: Overall speed (Score:2)
This is the trick. Sure, when you account for movement speed, needed space gaps, and traffic flow on the walking side vs. the constant set rate of the escalator and including queuing time to enter the escalator on both sides, it makes sense that its probably more efficient on average for everyone. It's certainly more safe.
The neglected information OP points out is that the world doesn't operate on average time demands. Sometimes your in a hurry, sometimes you're not, so we split the distributions and allow
Re:Overall speed (Score:4, Insightful)
I think I saw some research that actually when using both sides of escalator it actually increases the amount of people goes though. But the argument leaving other side free is to let those who are in the hurry walk and rest who are not that in a hurry just stand.
That research concluded that long escalators, where people were highly unlikely to ever walk, benefited from not having a "walking lane". To this I say: congratulation "igNoble prize candidate". Way to go to prove something obvious from a biased premise.
This research has gotten way too much attention and too little scrutiny. If done properly they should have checked different lengths of escalators, tried to find if there is a cut-off point where no-walking is beneficial and when it makes no difference and also repeated in different cultures. In some cultures you never walk up an escalator, in others it is perfectly normal to do so. Even in my home country you would get very different results as you have a walk lane that is used in my home city, but in a neighboring city no-one walks in an escalator.
So this research is poorly conducted and you should refrain from drawing too big conclusions from it.
Where I live, the metro has quite long escalators and this unwritten "stand to the right, walk on the left"-rule, and those stations where a lot of people switch trains or to busses, the "walking lane" is full at peak hour. Simple math tells us that the research made is invalid then, because if the "walking lane" is just as full as if the people were standing, and they are walking, more people per time unit can be transported with the escalator (given that they are moving the same way the escalator is moving). And off-peak hours? Well, then the escalators aren't full anyway, so it is a moot point, there are no "queues" to the escalators anyway and there are no capacity problems.
The take away from this? Don't build too long escalators. Don't build so narrow escalators that people cannot pass.
And those two should be dead giveaways anyway. If the escalators stop working, they will still serve as stairs (albeit with too high steps to be really comfortable). But if they are too long, many people will find it tiresome to walk the entire length. Better to put landings and have several shorter escalators. That also prevents a long escalator from overloading when the load becomes too high.
As for too narrow escalators? The same, if it stops and people need to walk, someone should be able to walk a bit slower and people should be able to pass.
Re:Overall speed (Score:4, Funny)
if it stops and people need to walk, someone should be able to walk a bit slower and people should be able to pass.
Might just be that I am still on my first cup of coffee of the morning, but I just pictured an escalator shutting down due to a power outage, and everyone that was riding on the right side taking a step to the left side and all politely walking up single file, leaving the right side as empty as the left was when power was still on.
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I like the way you think!
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So, only build escalators where stairs would've done just fine for anyone not disabled? Why not just stairs for the healthy and elevators for the disabled since some of them will need them anyway? Escalators can only be useful if they're long enough that taking the stairs would be too exhausting.
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I think I saw some research that actually when using both sides of escalator it actually increases the amount of people goes though. But the argument leaving other side free is to let those who are in the hurry walk and rest who are not that in a hurry just stand.
It's problematic looking at just the throughput of the escalator itself. It's part of a longer pedestrian journey. By reducing the clogging on the escalator itself, you just shift it to occur on either side, so while the overall throughput figures for the escalator might be better, it's not better for the walkers.
Or think of it another way: The slower people are going to be slower no matter what - they are not held back. So it's no improvement for them. On the other hand (or foot), if they occupy both
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Errata: s/lev/scal/g;
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OTOH, the escalators are usually the bottleneck, because the various corridors and tunnels are usually much wider. So if you increase their throughput, you also increase the overall throughput of the system.
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I think I saw some research that actually when using both sides of escalator it actually increases the amount of people goes though.
It really depends on how many people want to walk, and how many people want to stand.
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TFL did a few pilots
https://www.intelligenttranspo... [intelligenttransport.com]
"London Underground undertook a similar pilot in November and December 2015, which showed 30 percent more customers could use an escalator in the busiest parts of the day if they stood on both sides."
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The reason to leave the other side open is simply that the kind of person who walks or runs up an escalator will do so regardless. They're already knowingly doing something unsafe, so they're not going to try to be safe about it. It's safer for you if they do it without you in their way so that you don't get knocked down. Essentially the rule is safe people on the right, and that makes the hurrying types end up on the left automatically because they see a quicker route there when it's empty.
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When did walking up an escalator become unsafe?
I've never heard this before in 40 years, done it all my life and I've never fallen.
Wtf
Re: Overall speed (Score:2)
The correct terms are bandwidth and latency.
Making people stand on both sides increases bandwidth but increases latency.
Since what people want is low latency, this is a problem.
Optimizing for bandwidth at the cost of latency is a frequent annoyance that people in charge of transport and infrastructure do. That's also how they justify that lowering speed limits make travel "faster", when clearly it doesn't.
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I think I saw some research that actually when using both sides of escalator it actually increases the amount of people goes though.
I would dispute this. I've never seen anyone willingly stand to the left of a complete stranger. They only do it when some idiot in front of them has forgotten how to climb stairs.
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Escalators are for walking, they are most efficient when everyone walks on them, which fortunately is not that uncommon in Scandinavia. Cows that doesn't walk keep to right, so they can be passed.
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This isn't for safety. It's to reduce lines of people waiting on the escalator. Maybe you've never been somewhere that busy before?
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No, the signs aren't lying. But if being accurate about the motivation leads to lower compliance then they'll change the story to engage people's social imperatives.
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Throughput obviously decreases when someone decides to stand on the left side. How the hell did you reach the opposite conclusion?
Only if you put a higher priority on walkers. If there's still a love on the non-walker side, then it's not optimal for the general case. All it takes it one walker to prevent the side from being used by lots of non walkers.
Stairs (Score:3)
Re:Stairs (Score:4, Insightful)
Because people are lazy. They think running up a crowded escalator is faster than taking open stairs. I have tried this on several occasions. Pick someone on the escalator and walk up the stairs. Without exception I always arrive ahead of them. If I take the stairs faster, I'm already on my way while they're still stuck.
The same with parking lots. People will slowly drive around, looking for a close spot while I park further away. While I'm on my way into the building, they're just pulling into a spot or getting out of their car.
Laziness short circuits common sense in some situations. Going up a crowded escalator rather than using open stairs is one of those.
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To be fair in Tokyo they have turbo escalators that run faster than the normal ones, and I think you would have to be pretty fit to keep up with them.
Of course they only use them where there is also a normal speed escalator for people who can't cope with life in the fast lane.
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I promise you, you running up the stairs and me running up the escalator, I'll beat you so long as I'm not blocked. This isn't exactly advanced physics here.
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Really depends. Especially in Tokyo. (Although my experience is mostly from some time spent in Yokohama).
There you have basically three different situations during the day:
- "Off Hours": Not much people around. Trotting up the escalator is fastest.
- "Medium" Rush-Hour: Slight queues in front of the escalator, both on the standing and walking side. You are faster most of the time when you take the (usually wider) stairs where there is no queue.
- "Packed" Rush-Hour: Walking on the escalator becomes quite impo
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You take the stairs because people are blocking the escalators, it's the only scenario where it may be faster. You know what's faster than running up stairs? Running up an escalator.
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I'm assuming that there's a perfectly good set of stairs that can be used instead of escalators.
Welcome to University of Washington station, where they didn’t design in stairways in order to keep the footprint of the station as small as possible! Oh, and the reason they had to keep the footprint small was because of limited construction space between a football stadium and one of the busiest roads in the US.
Oh, and the reason it’s near the football stadium is because boosters thought it made more sense to have it there for six games a year rather than in the middle of campus where the univ
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Maybe this is a stupid question, but why not just take the stairs if you're in a hurry? Maybe it's different in Japan or there are a few locations where this doesn't hold true, but I'm assuming that there's a perfectly good set of stairs that can be used instead of escalators.
That assumption is the problem. I usually take the stairs (faster plus excercise) but especially in deep subway systems there very often aren't open stairs available. For example, St. Petersburg (Russia) has a deep subway system, and rarely are there open stairs. The typical exit looks like this: http://www.saint-petersburg.co... [saint-petersburg.com]
I don't remember Tokyo, it's been over 10 years. But their subway system was excellent back then and very well thought out. And japanese people are very disciplined on public trans
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Escalators are stairs, not elevators. They're moving stairs. Everybody should be climbing it up.
It's purpose is the exact same as the flat moving walkways in airports. They get you where you want to go quicker.
Broken legs (Score:1)
I find it surprising that people can operate their legs on normal stairways, yet their legs stop operation when on stairs that move.
Same goes with moving pathways at airports.
How lazy.
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It's the basis of some of the funniest videos on the 'Net.
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most the people here will have trouble with flights of stairs in middle age. if you're eating well and exercising what you are saying is fine...
trivially proven not true (Score:5, Insightful)
"When one side isn't reserved for walkers, it saves time for everyone."
This is an absurd claim that doesn't pass the most basic smell test.
If everyone is a stander, then the latency for everyone is fixed once they are on the device. Therefore, the only way to "save time for everyone" is for everyone to literally have to wait extra time to get on otherwise. That is clearly NEVER the case for everyone and is, in most instances, never the case for ANYONE.
If the most important thing is absolute throughput, then you need to pack like sardines to minimize wait on entry. This is likely never true except in an exceptional place during exceptional demand. Otherwise, it will always be best to yield space to those who need to minimize transit time since your latency will be unaffected. This is so trivially easy to understand it's a joke.
It's not wonder "transit users around the world just can't be convinced", it's because it's wrong. Laughably wrong.
Not throughput nor latency but safety (Score:2)
If the most important thing is absolute throughput, then you need to pack like sardines to minimize wait on entry. This is likely never true except in an exceptional place during exceptional demand.
What the featured article refers to as "the city’s busiest transit hubs" you might indeed call "an exceptional place". Besides, the article appears to imply that in JR East's opinion, the most important thing might be neither throughput nor latency but collision safety, particularly for people carrying bulky and/or heavy luggage.
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Yup. London has "tried" it for more than 50 years on the Underground, so if it didn't work, we'd have known by now. Oddly enough, the directive to "stand on the right" (with signs every 15 feet reiterating that) is still around.
Try standing on the left on an escalator at Oxford Circus (busiest) or Victoria (second busiest), I dare anyone who thinks it is better. I double dare them. Then try it at rush hour. They'll be told off by staff (not just sworn at by commuters) for causing congestion and slowing ever
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At very best times, the cumulative effect of greater throughput seems to overwhelm social programming. In that the throughput is highest when both sides stand. People keep piling on until the people behind have to pause since they're too close to someone in front. Then the person behind had to stop and it propagates all the way up leaving a standing only escalator.
It doesn't recover until the traffic volume drops below some threshold and people can move again.
It happens regularly at busy stations at busy ti
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Yup. ... I dare anyone who thinks it is better. I double dare them. ...
I triple DOG dare them!
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"When one side isn't reserved for walkers, it saves time for everyone."
This is an absurd claim that doesn't pass the most basic smell test.
If everyone is a stander, then the latency for everyone is fixed once they are on the device.
Think of it as Net Neutrality for escalators.. ;) No preferential treatment for the walking packets over the riding ones.
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It improves capacity. If half the escalator is being used by a small number of rushers, the total capacity of the system is reduced. Only if the number of users using the walker side >= the number on the standing side will capacity still be maintained. If capacity drops because the walker side is used by less users, and demand is greater than capacity, latency increases for the ones on the standing side.
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This is likely never true except in an exceptional place during exceptional demand.
Like, say during rush hour when everyone is getting on/off the subway, and people are waiting for the escalator? Or at an airport when a fully loaded 777 arrives?
This kind of exceptional demand happens all the time. It's not are rare as you're making it out to be.
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If the most important thing is absolute throughput, then you need to pack like sardines to minimize wait on entry. This is likely never true except in an exceptional place during exceptional demand.
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You have the insight to see the exact problem and you are wrong. The big clod of people waiting to step on the escalator is exactly the place where the problem is solved.
This was done really poorly in London by the way. They painted footsteps on the treads, and they showed a lame hologram poster of a person gesturing silently to the escalator. WTF! And then they called it a failure because nobody stood on the left.
There is one and only one excellent w
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Here's the article [theguardian.com] that describes the original 'trial' that they did at Holburn station in London.
Having caught the tube there many times I find it pretty easy to believe that making them standing only would save some time for some people - what you refer to as 'exceptional demand' is pretty much normal there in peak hour where the wait on entry is a problem.
It would however make it worse for /me/ because I'm one of the few people that actually does walk up that long steep escalator!
Social Credit System (Score:2)
That man with flags is here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
And "little" is racist.
Makes sense some places, not others. (Score:5, Insightful)
Two at a time standing maybe makes sense if there are enough people at the bottom of the escalator to saturate it - i.e. a big enough crowd at the bottom that there are always two more people to step on each step as it appears.That is logically the maximum throughput, if you assume that people walking up leave spaces between them. If you had a pool of fit people who all wanted to get up the escalator as fast as possible, then they could all walk, or, god forbid, run up the escalator and the increased velocity would likely offset the effect of the spaces and you would achieve even greater throughput.
Around here the transit stations are busy, but seldom at saturation levels. People stand on the right and walk on the left. Seems to work well enough. Most people walk up, the ones who stand are usually pulling a suitcase, or elderly, or obese, or heads down reading a book or a screen.
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Two at a time standing maybe makes sense if there are enough people at the bottom of the escalator to saturate it - i.e. a big enough crowd at the bottom that there are always two more people to step on each step as it appears.That is logically the maximum throughput, if you assume that people walking up leave spaces between them
You would also need to know how fast the walkers are going.
Big Brother the Bureaucrat (Score:1)
Conditional signs (Score:1)
It's only when traffic volume exceeds a certain level that double-standing makes sense. But if it's not clear when "double time" is, the confusion can cause problems and injuries.
You need explicit and standardized timed signs.
frankfurt airport reserve left side for walker (Score:3)
Really?!? (Score:2)
They tried in London (Score:2)
There may be a different reason (Score:1)
Count Me Among the "Not Convinced" (Score:2)
Let's call the escalator speed "1". If you have an escalator capable of holding two persons per step, the output would be 2/step-arrival if everyone stands still.
If 25% of the users are walkers, and ascend twice as fast as the escalator, that would result in a 2/sa metric. If more than 25% use the "walk" lane, throughput increases. If fewer use it, throughput decreases.
The critical factor is not "have a walk lane or not", it's "how do
Common sense (Score:1)
Which side? (Score:2)
The correct side to stand on depends on where you are. In Osaka and the surrounding region we stand on the right side. Only clueless out-of-towners from Tokyo would be dumb enough to stand on the left blocking busy commuters.
I would personally find it frustrating to be blocked when there is clear space beyond the blockage that I could be walking up. I have a train to catch.
Same in Osaka (Score:1)
Freeze (Score:1)
Justified (Score:2)
This is why I don't like big cities and mass transit. At the end of the day, all humanity gets reduced to automata. You are not a person with your own goals and desires. We much force you into a box that exactly matches all the other boxes so that we can increase efficiency. Step on the escalator, ignore your personal space and sidle up next to the other person that you have never met as if you're best friends.
No, thank you.
Title had me imagine everyone twisting to one side (Score:2)
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When in a hurry, I often find the stairs are faster than the crowded escalator.
This is frequently the case even when only a small number of people are using an escalator. If you're in a hurry and physically capable, the stairs are almost always a better option.
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are you retarded? if an escalator is void of people, running up or down the escalator is significantly faster than stairs.
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And unlike those sillies on the escalator, you won't be stuck on the stairs in the event of a power outage. :D
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What stairs? Plenty of London stations only have escalators.
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