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Show HN: Elevators

john.fun

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Re: Show HN: Elevators

#271

Post by bentcorner »

CobrastanJorji wrote: post #108
brandonpelfrey wrote: post #6

For folks that have never seen elevator scheduling the game: https://play.elevatorsaga.com/ Enjoy this rabbit hole :D

This is great, but to me, the definitive elevator scheduling game was SimTower.

> People don't usually remember the average amount of time they wait. They fixate on those times when the elevator took FOREVER, the p90 case.

I would always get a chuckle out of seeing some poor soul waiting 3 hours to go down a few floors after work, only because I failed to add stairs to the lobby.

Re: Show HN: Elevators

#272

Post by thenoblesunfish »

Fun! I hate those new kiosk style elevators, because I can't reconfirm that I actually pressed the button, remember which one I am supposed to wait for or press the button again while I'm waiting to make sure I really pressed it. Also don't like that I can't change my mind inside the elevator. All in theory not problems if you were a rational person and the system WAI but I am not and things like elevators rarely do. The up/down buttons are more brainless and I like that. Interesting to hear that they might not even be more efficient!

Re: Show HN: Elevators

#273

Post by contingencies »

superhuzza wrote: post #219
contingencies wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For these people, replace the buttons entirely with a voice-activated destination request on proximity.

Full circle back to elevator operators!

Primarily this fixes the bug in the interface which is allowing the user to input data that does not match their declared destination. However, a second benefit is that you can then obtain per-user destination information, which is useful in capacity planning and currently lost in shared direction-only button pressing. Finally, you could usefully use non-floor specifications, ie. 'Ladies underwear', 'ACME Co.', etc.

Re: Show HN: Elevators

#274

Post by sixhobbits »

grishka wrote: post #263

How often do people travel between non-ground floors though? In my own experience, whether it's a residential or an office building, 99% of elevator usage is a) someone going down to the ground floor, and b) someone going up from the ground floor. There are some exceptions like hotels that have amenities on different floors though. The first elevator "algorithm", if you can even call it that, that I've ever encounter…

Not sure how common it is but Bern train station has 3 elevators, usually 2 are set to normal and one to "express" which means all middle floors (mainly parking) are locked and you can only go ground to top (outside so a lot of people going to/from the station on foot)

It's super efficient for people who understand the system at the detriment of people who don't, as they get in and mash the middle buttons and get confused that they don't activate

Re: Show HN: Elevators

#275

Post by noduerme »

grishka wrote: post #263

How often do people travel between non-ground floors though? In my own experience, whether it's a residential or an office building, 99% of elevator usage is a) someone going down to the ground floor, and b) someone going up from the ground floor. There are some exceptions like hotels that have amenities on different floors though. The first elevator "algorithm", if you can even call it that, that I've ever encounter…

I was confused by this "LOOK" algo... I'm American and I've lived all over the place, and I'm not familiar with elevators that pick you up on the way up if you pushed the down button. As far as my experience, they only pick you up on the way back down. To the extent that if I did hit the down button and got in and it went up, I'd think I'd gotten in the wrong elevator or there had been a mistake.

Re: Show HN: Elevators

#276

Post by graton »

grishka wrote: post #263

How often do people travel between non-ground floors though? In my own experience, whether it's a residential or an office building, 99% of elevator usage is a) someone going down to the ground floor, and b) someone going up from the ground floor. There are some exceptions like hotels that have amenities on different floors though. The first elevator "algorithm", if you can even call it that, that I've ever encounter…

There are also elevators in cruise ships. People get on and off at almost all the floors.

Re: Show HN: Elevators

#277

Post by sorz »

I just come back from a furry con hosted in hotel in China, and learn how every furry con like this completely break hotel's elevators:

- rooms are all booked

- young furries usually share one room with 4 or even up to 6 friends

- more guest room-lobby-ballroom traffic

- far more inter-guest-floor traffic than their usual tourists

- one full-suit furry take 1.5-2 human's space

Their elevators are not designed for this scenario and got overloaded all the day. Queueing for tens of minutes is not uncommon.

Re: Show HN: Elevators

#278

Post by ChuckMcM »

The "Elevator Problem" (and the "Street Light Problem") were both CS 200 exercises when I was in college. Along with a bunch of other 'game' type systems like 8 queens, Hanoi towers, maze solving, etc. Still, that is the most elegant web widget I've ever seen that illustrates the options. If you're reading this John I'd love to hear how you wrote them.

Re: Show HN: Elevators

#279

Post by stkni »

Great analysis! I used to ask a fairly open ended elevator system design question for engineering interviews. There is a lot of mileage in this topic and everyone has an understanding of the basics so the setup costs for the question are minimal. Always generated a lot of interesting discussion.

Re: Show HN: Elevators

#280

Post by perpetuallunch »

woeh wrote: post #266

I am currently staying in an AirBnB of a 60 floor tower, and the three elevator shafts definitely cannot handle this (I don't think the building was designed with renting to tourists in mind). The elevators are frequently completely saturated during weekends, meaning that the elevator stops at each floor, but noone can get in because the elevator is already full. This means the backlog of people wanting to use the el…

Or, the building / owners corp / code / city could simply ban short stay accommodation where it was never attended.

I would not want to be in that building if an evacuation alarm sounded.

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