Lifts/elevators as a form of rapid transit

[61653 HTAFC]

The city of Medellin in Colombia has an escalator system that serves as a form of public transport:
BBC article from 2011

The Colombian city of Medellin has opened a giant outdoor escalator for residents of one of its poorest areas.
People living in the Comuna 13 district - which clings to a steep hillside - previously had to climb hundreds of steps to get home from the city centre.
The escalator is divided into six sections and ascends nearly 384m (1,260ft).
The mayor of Medellin says it is the first project of its kind in the world aimed specifically at the poor.
In the 1980s Medellin was known as the murder capital of the world and a major drug-trafficking centre, but in recent years it has undergone a renaissance.
The $7m (£4.5m) escalator is the latest in a series of transport infrastructure projects that are helping to transform the city.
It has a modern metro system, and some other hillside neighbourhoods are served by cable cars.
About 12,000 residents of Comuna 13 will benefit from the escalator, which is free to use and shortens a half-hour walk to about five minutes.
Previously they had to walk the equivalent of a 30-storey building to get to and from the city centre.
Comuna 13 remains one of Medellin's poorest and most violent neighbourhoods.
But the authorities hope the escalator - combined with other social projects - will help integrate its residents with the rest of the city and the wider economy.

 

[dcbwhaley]

Some bigger buildings have a system where you choose your floor before walking into the lift lobby; the system then tells you which lift to wait for. That’s not quite the same thing but presumably there is some sort of algorithm which allocates the stopping pattern most efficiently.

On a slight tangent, as per the mid levels comment, are there any street escalators anywhere in the UK which just exist to climb hills?

Living at the top of a 20% 100 metre long hill: I wish!

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 26 Nov 2022 ==

Religious rules like this are important only for the believers' beliefs, and it doesn't matter if people who don't share those beliefs see any relevance in them. I personally am non-religious, but I'd never presume to tell somebody else they shouldn't worship in the way they feel matters to them.

Nor would I. But I would not inconvenience myself to accommodate their weird beliefs

 

[Cowley]

Thread reopened for @geoffk to add to.

 

[Shimbleshanks]

I have a memory of a lift in a Portuguese city in the mid 1980s or early 1990s where you paid a small fare to board and it took you from the lower to the upper part of the city. It could well have been Lisbon, but maybe Oporto.

 

[geoffk]

Not sure if this has already been reported here but I've just come across the news from Blaenau Gwent Council that the Ebbw Vale Mechanical Lift will cease operating on April 28th, 2023. The closure was one of a series of cuts made by Blaenau Gwent County Borough Council, which said it is facing a “range of financial pressures.”

One my one visit, the lift was well used by students. I know there were reliability and vandalism problems but the decision was evidently made on cost grounds. A shame TfW didn't take it over as it was part of the town's public transport.

UPDATE - apparently the Mechanical Lift didn't close permanently and reopened earlier this year. I assume funding has been found to continue operation, but for how long? It's a free ride and employing someone to collect fares would probably not be justified. As an alternative, perhaps a 50p levy could be added to the train fare to/from Ebbw Vale Town and passed on to BGC for the upkeep of the lift.

 

[nwales58]

Genoa’s lifts have been mentioned, from memory I think they charge as part of the zonal fare system and run to a timetable so would definitely qualify as public transport (Montegalletto is a lift whose cabins pop out then run a distance horizontally too, so people mover-cum-lift).

Hammetschwand lift, Lake Lucerne, rises 150m. Same role as swiss funiculars but is a pure lift. Decades since I used it but I think it was on demand rather than timetable.

On public escalators, Chonqing has a few including what felt like the longest I’ve ever been on. One of them charged, from memory.

 

[Ghostbus]

This could work as follows: if you had three double lift shafts in say a 50 floor building, the three pairs working in the normal up/down counterbalance fashion, one shaft with a single lift in each shift calling at every 10th floor, one with two lifts per shaft calling at very 5th floor (1 to 25 and 25 to 50) and the last with 10 lifts per shaft working every floor (1 to 10, 10 to 20 etc).

They'd work to a consistent repating pattern, cycling their up and down routes, with the express and inter-urban lifts moving in a synchronised way to always meet each other and/or the stopper at a foor, and the dwell time set at say 5 seconds, such that at the points in the cycle where two or three lifts are at the same floor, an able bodied adult can walk from one lift to the other.

With a graphical real time display inside and out, showing lift positions, directions and the next transfer floors in this cycle, most passengers should be able to intuitively figure out the best combination of lifts and transfers to get to their floor faster than just taking the slow lift. Which is what it's all about, beating those suckers. For non-intuits, if they press a floor it tells them the most efficient pattern in the current cycle in a simple graphical way.

Whether this beats three dual lift shafts working on demand, is the million dollar question. As in, pay me a million dollars and I'll knock up a simulation. Or just steal your million dollars, sucker!

 

[Blindtraveler]

Still not sure if that beats the destination dispatch model for efficiency, I don't know enough to compare to be honest

 

[bluenoxid]

I have a memory of a lift in a Portuguese city in the mid 1980s or early 1990s where you paid a small fare to board and it took you from the lower to the upper part of the city. It could well have been Lisbon, but maybe Oporto.

Santa Justa lift in Lisbon might be what you are thinking of.

 

[Shimbleshanks]

Santa Justa lift in Lisbon might be what you are thinking of.

Yes, looking at it on Google images, it does ring a bell, though it was a very long time ago.

 

[simonw]

The Barrakka Lift

Messrs. Joseph Richmond and Co. Limited of 30 Kirby Street, Hatton Garden, London, constructed and erected the Upper Barrakka Gardens lift for Macartney, McElroy & Co. Ltd. The lift was o…

vassallohistory.wordpress.com

Valletta on Malta has a public lift

 

[zero]

In Bern, Switzerland there is a lift to travel between the level of the river bank and the higher level of the city centre. Some distance away there is also a funicular. The lift operates to a terrace and is a paid service with a fare collector at the bottom.

I had a Saver Day Pass and the first time I visited, the funicular was included but the lift was not, however the lift was later added to the validity of the GA.

This could work as follows: if you had three double lift shafts in say a 50 floor building...

and the dwell time set at say 5 seconds...

Whether this beats three dual lift shafts working on demand, is the million dollar question.

I think it depends on the demand for vertical travel.

For example in a traditional office building, your 5/10/50 system (I suspect a 7/49 system might be more efficient) would likely deliver people more efficiently at "peak" time when people are arriving at work, going to/from lunch and leaving home.

During "off-peak" times travel on request may be better.

 

[SargeNpton]

Hardly rapid transit, but this funicular operates in Paris, near the Sacré-Cœur, using Metro tickets...

(picture of funicular)

 

[Blindtraveler]

I scratched that back in 2001 on a school trip.

 

[ninja-lewis]

Chongqing, China may some metro-style elevators. A three dimensional city like Hong Kong on steroids.

A sprawling megacity of multi-level madness: why Chongqing in China is my wonder of the world

This megacity is like Hong Kong on steroids – a vertically sprawling, astonishing urban phenomenon that can only be understood in three dimensions

www.theguardian.com

 

[Stossgebet]

The Funicular del Rio de La Pila is user operated in exactly the same way as a lift. It is in Santander, in Northern Spain. It has 4 levels (floors). On the steep approach road at the base of the funicular, there are escalators on the pavement for padestrians!

 

[185]

Luxembourg has a mass-transport automated funicular just outside the city - it does move a lot of people.

Recently been to a foreign hotel with a lift tunnelled deep down through the cliff and you walk out of a tunnel onto the beach, quite efficient.