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The Design of Elevator Systems in High Rise Buildings, Part 1

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Lift Report 2017; 43(5): 46-62

The Design of Elevator Systems in

High Rise Buildings, Part 1
Lutfi Al-Sharif
Professor,
Mechatronics Engineering Department,
The University of Jordan, Amman 11942, Jordan

Abstract
This article discusses the elevator traffic design for high rise buildings. It starts
by listing the factors that distinguish high rise buildings from low rise buildings in
terms of traffic design as well as the technologies required to address the
problems arising from the high rated speeds necessary for high rise buildings.
The terms sector, zone and stack are defined at the beginning as they are critical
to the operation of high rise buildings. The use of elevators for the evacuation for
high rise buildings is then discussed along with the latest thinking in this area.
Two design approaches are then introduced for the design of elevator
traffic systems for high rise buildings. The first approach is the use of simulation
packages in order to develop a selection chart based on the total building
population and the number of floors above the main entrance. It identifies the
two most influential demand factors that affect the design output for vertical
transportation systems in buildings. These are the total building population and
the number of floors served above the main terminal. These are then used to
develop general guidelines to find the most optimum configuration for every pair
of such parameters. This is then transformed into a two-dimensional chart that
can visually aid the designer into using the best configuration for a building.
The second approach is based on the use of calculation and then
simulation aided with rational design rules. Six rules are introduced and
discussed for the design of high rise buildings including stacked buildings with
sky lobbies.

1. INTRODUCTION
Traditionally, the design of a vertical transportation system for a certain building
is based on the knowledge of the following parameters:

1. Building population.
2. Passenger arrival patterns.
3. Building usage (office, residential, hospital…).
4. Number of floors.
5. Car park usage.
6. Location of special floors (meeting floors, restaurants…).

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The vertical transportation design of a building involves the selection of the

number, speed and capacity of the elevators to be used. Preferred values for the
speed and capacity are specified in ISO4190-1.
For simple buildings with a limited number of floors, these elevators are
usually arranged in one group of elevators. A group controller allocates the
landing calls to each of the elevators operating in the same group.
As the building complexity increases, the single group configuration
becomes inadequate. It is then necessary to consider more sophisticated
configurations such as sectors, zones and stacks accompanied with sky lobbies.
Further enhancements involve the use of double decker elevators [1], [2]
and [3] (in place of the conventional single decker elevators) as shuttle elevators
or enhancement of the methodology used to allocate the landing calls to the
various elevators in the group.
Thus, the design of the vertical transportation system comprises four distinct
activities:

1. Identifying the number, speed and capacity of the elevators within a

specific group. This is usually carried out by doing a calculation by finding
the value of the round trip time ([4] and [5]).

2. Identifying the number of group of elevators and their arrangement within

the building. For each group, the floors which will be served by each
group of elevators are also identified (referred to as a zone). If the zoning
arrangement is not permanent, the operating times for such an
arrangement also need to be identified.

3. Identifying the group control algorithm that will allocate the landing calls to
each of the elevators in a certain group (e.g., conventional group control).

4. Identifying the need for double decker elevators where appropriate ([1], [2]
and [3]).

2. THE TWO APPROACHES TO THE DESIGN OF ELEVATOR TRAFFIC

SYSTEMS FOR HIGH RISE BUILDINGS
The approach of this article is to introduce two approaches for the design of
elevator traffic systems for high rise. These are outlined in the following two sub-
sections.

2.1 First Approach

The first approach is based on the use of simulation packages in order to identify
the two most important parameters that affect the design of the elevator traffic
systems, namely the building population and the number of floors above the main
entrance.
This approach is restricted to office buildings based on the morning up-
peak. It first identifies the most salient demand parameters of a building and
uses these parameters to guide the selection process. The term lobby is used to

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refer to the floor from which all the incoming traffic originates. Another term that
is commonly used is the main terminal.
This approach is limited however to building heights of 40 to 50 floors only
and does not include the use of sky lobbies and stacks. This approach is
discussed in detail in section 8 of this article and mainly based on reference [6].
Buildings with more than 50 floors require a completely different approach (e.g.
sky lobbies) and are addressed in part 2 mainly based on reference [7].

2.2 Second Approach

The second approach is to use rational rules for rule based design of elevator
traffic systems in high rise buildings, using calculation and simulation stages.
This extends the design scope to floor above 40 or 50 floor heights and allows
the use of sky lobbies and stacks. This is presented in the second part of this
article and is mainly based on reference [7]. An overview is given below for the
suggested approach of using rational rules as opposed to rules of thumb.
Elevator traffic system design has been traditionally based on rules of thumb
and the designer’s judgement and expertise. This is especially true for high rise
buildings. These are two examples of the general rules of thumb that are used:

• The number of floors in a single zone should not exceed 18 to 20 floors.

• Sky lobbies should be introduced for buildings exceeding 50 to 60 floors.

There are three problems with the use of rules of thumb:

• They do not provide an explanation for the rationale underlying the rule.
• Following on from the previous point, if the assumptions on which the rule
was based change, the rule cannot be changed accordingly.
• Rules of thumb cannot be used to develop a systematic design
methodology.

The aim of this part is to develop a set of rules that can guide the designer
throughout the elevator traffic system design process for high rise buildings.
Solely for clarification in this piece of work, a high rise building is defined as any
building that has floors more than those that can be accommodated in a single
zone (thus requiring multiple zones or a sky lobby, both of which are defined in
section 2 of this document).
The rules will be based on rational reasoning, whereby the rationale on
which the rule is based will be clearly stated. This ensures that where the
underlying assumptions change, the rule changes accordingly. In addition, the
rules are fully transparent showing the threshold values of the different
parameters for the different rules. The designer can thus change these
thresholds as he/she sees fit.
It will be assumed that the designer starts with a calculation that will
provide a starting point for the simulation. The design process followed in this
method has been based on the methodology found in [8]. The round trip time
calculation using equations has been based on the equations found in [9], [10]

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and [11]. Under certain situations, it is necessary to use the Monte Carlo
simulation method to evaluate the round trip time [12]. The design process then
moves to simulation in order to fine tune the design. Finschi [13] states that
advanced software packages are used nowadays in the design process, rather
than simple calculation methods.
It will also be assumed that the designer possesses the required skills to
carry out the design of a single zone elevator traffic system. The design of a
single zone elevator traffic system is considered to be beyond the scope of this
document. In effect, the design of a single zone elevator traffic system is the
basic building block that will be re-used in all high rise building designs.
This second approach is presented in detail in part 2 of this article and is
based on reference [7]. It is based on definition of the average waiting time and
average travelling time that are different to those defined in [14].

3. SECTORS, ZONES AND STACKS

No unanimous agreement exists in the industry on the exact definitions of the
terms sector, zone and stack. To avoid any ambiguity, these terms are defined
as shown below (based on definitions from [7]).

Sector: A group of floors (usually, but not necessarily, contiguous) that are
grouped together in the controller software and are served by one specific
elevator in each round trip. The allocation of a sector to an elevator and the
sector’s composition are not necessarily fixed and can be dynamically changed
from one elevator trip to the next.

Zone: A group of contiguous floors that are served by a number of elevators

operating in one group. The size and composition of a zone is fixed by the
building hardware (e.g., location of the machine room) and cannot be altered. It
is usually motivated by the need to save floor area on the floors above the lower
zones. Zoning can be also be used as a tool for traffic segregation (e.g., hotel,
offices, residential). A zone can contain a number of sectors.

Stack: A stack is a group of contiguous floors that are located away from the
main building entrance and is served by a sky lobby. A stack can be thought of
as a building that has been placed (or stacked) above other stacks. A stack can
contain a number of zones.

It is appropriate at this stage to define the concept of a transfer floor. A transfer

floor is a floor that is common to two adjacent zones, and allows passengers
moving from one zone to the other adjacent zone to use the transfer floor without
the need to travel to the main entrance and then to the other zone. A transfer
floor is not usually included in the traffic calculations, but is only added for
convenience.

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4. OVERVIEW OF EXISTING WORK ON HIGH RISE BUILDING

TRANSPORTATION DESIGN
This section presents a general overview of the various contributions to high rise
vertical transportation system design.
A good example of the detailed design of a high rise building (2 IFC in
Hong Kong) has been presented in 2004 by To & Yip [16]. It has 88 floors and a
population of 15 000. It has seven zones and two sky lobbies served by double
deck elevators.
There are eight rules of thumb listed in To & Yip [16]. Some of these have
been reproduced below:

1. The target handling capacity for the local zones shall be more than or
equal to 12% and the target interval less than or equal to 30 seconds.
2. The target handling capacity for the shuttle systems shall be more than or
equal to 15% and the target interval less than or equal to 20 seconds.
3. Top down sky lobby design systems are to be avoided.
4. There shall be no more than 8 elevators in each group.
5. The number of floors in a local zone should be around 15 floors.
6. The rated car capacity should be 1600 kg (20 persons).
7. The rated car capacity of double deck elevators should be 1600/1600 kg
or 1800/1800 kg.
8. When used, a shuttle elevator shall serve no more than three local zones.
9. The passenger journey shall comprise no more than one transition
between different elevator systems (e.g., a shuttle and then a local zone).
10. For each elevator that forms part of a local zone it shall serve no more
than two floors (i.e. the ratio of floors to elevators in the local zone should
be in the ratio of 2:1).

Another rule of thumb suggested by Scott [13] attributed to Strakosch [16] is the
rule whereby one elevator is needed for every 225 people in an office building.
Jochem Wit [17] presents a number of building design examples on the use of
destination group control to remove the need for zoning a building. Destination
group control has been used as a means of segregating of the different modes of
traffic in the building.
In [6] it is shown that the two most important parameters that influence the
design of a high rise building are the number of floors above the main entrance
and the total population.
An expert system is described in Alexandris [18]. It uses forward and
backward chaining inference mechanisms in order to accept or reject certain
solutions. It has a set of if-then rules. An example of one of the rules is:

If passenger waiting time is more than 50 seconds then reject solution

Another rule uses natural language descriptions:

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If loading is high AND passenger waiting time is normal AND system cost is
reasonable then accept solution.

He also points out that a user would like to query the software as to how the
decision was made for a certain design. He also discusses a rule base in which
the user can modify or amend existing rules or add new ones.
In [19] Barney presents a general overview of vertical transportation
systems in tall buildings. The paper contains clear definitions of low, mid and
high rise, tall and very tall and skyscrapers. It also contains an excellent
overview of the different arrangements of high rise design buildings (example:
Petronas Towers).
Browne & Kelly [20] present an overview of the simulation carried out to
assess the performance of the elevator traffic system for two of the buildings in
the World Trade Centre.
Caporale [21] suggests normalising the average journey time (AJT) in
order to allow comparison between building design and with industry standards.
He suggests dividing the average journey time by 5 minutes (which is used as
the basis for the arrival rate design) and setting a threshold of 25% (i.e., 75
seconds).
Fortune [22] states that the key to efficient high rise design is to stack the
zones on top of each other. He also suggests that a two-minute headway should
be achieved for the shuttle elevators. He also lists the seven technical problems
that face any high rise design. He then outlines a general methodology for even
going higher by effectively stacking buildings on top of each other (50 to 60 floor
high buildings stacked on top of each other).
Howkins [23] classifies buildings further as follows:

• 40-60 floors denoted as tall buildings, of which many exist and can provide
information and feedback.
• 60-80 floors denoted as very tall buildings, of which a good number exist
and can provide information and feedback.
• 80+ floors denoted as super-high-rise buildings, of which not many exist
(less than 20).
• 150+ floors denoted as super-high-rise/super-volume buildings, of which
none exist at present.

Howkins [23] then:

• Calculates the actual core area and the lost potential rent from such an
area.
• Presents a simplified procedure for designing high rise buildings.
• Suggests that the population density falls for high rise and tall buildings to
a density much lower than 10 m2 per person.

Mitric presents in [24] and [25] the concept of a total useful area in the building
and presents a set of curves that peak at a certain arrangement.

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Powell uses the term banking (meaning zoning) and uses dynamic
programming to decide on the optimum arrangement ([26] and [27]).

5. DIFFERENCES BETWEEN LOW RISE AND HIGH RISE

Wit [28] identifies four main differences between the traffic design of low rise and
high rise building. These have been summarised below:

1. A wider variety of elevator configurations is possible for high-rise building

compared to low rise buildings.

2. Minor considerations can suddenly become far more influential.

3. The margins are very tight and hence any changes are very costly later in
the project.

4. The options available from control systems are very large. Features that
produce small incremental improvements for low rise building can make
the difference between success and failure for a high-rise building.
Examples of such features are traffic pattern recognition, self-learning and
adaptation to different passenger traffic flows.

6. TECHNOLOGICAL ISSUES FOR HIGH SPEED ELEVATORS

As the rise of the building increases, higher speeds are necessary. Wit [28] lists
a number of technical issues that are especially relevant to high speed elevators.
These are summarised below:

1. At such high speeds, air resistance becomes a serious problem. Air

resistance results in energy losses as well as excessive audible noise. It
is customary at these speeds to streamline the elevator car in order to
reduce the effects of air resistance. In addition, landing door are clad in
order to ensure a smooth surface and prevent hammering when the
elevator car travels past them.

2. The piston effect (sometimes referred to as the plunger effect) become a

problem as the air is displaced. A path must be provided for the air to be
displaced between elevator shafts.

3. The design of elevator car lateral guidance system requires special

attention. It is customary nowadays to install active intelligent guidance
systems.

4. The pressure difference between the topmost floor and the lower-most
floor is also an issue and has an effect on human comfort. In some cases
the elevator car internal pressure is controlled. Lauener [29] expresses
the view that the pressure change problems effectively limit the travel
distance to 300 m in one journey.

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7. THE USE OF ELEVATORS FOR EVACUATION IN HIGH-RISE

BUILDINGS
It has been accepted for a long time that elevators are not to be used for
evacuation, especially in case of a fire. Stairs are relied on as the means of
evacuation from buildings.
However, as buildings progressively increase in height, it is obvious that
this is not a viable and safe option for evacuating passengers from buildings in
the case of emergency. Evacuating by stairs takes an excessively long time, as
the walking speed down stairs becomes very low as the stairs become
increasingly crowded as the slower walkers block those coming from behind.
Moreover, the 11 September 2001 incident placed more pressure on the elevator
industry to reconsider the status quo. It has become obvious that evacuation by
stairs is putting building residents at an increased risk compared to the perceived
risk of using elevators for evacuation.

An earlier piece of work by Klote [30] presented a methodology for calculating the
evacuation time from the building using elevators. It derived a set of equations
from first principles that are very similar to those used to calculate the round trip
time for the basic elevator traffic design process.

A groundswell of opinion has been forming with the view that elevators must be
used for evacuation of buildings and that most, if not all elevators, must be
designed to be able to operate for a specified period of time following an
emergency ([31], [32], [33]). The view is that total evacuation time should be in
the range of 15 to 20 minutes. Evacuation by stairs will remains preferable for
low rise buildings [32].

The Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH) identified the following
top five priorities for the research in the area of “Circulation, Vertical
Transportation and Evacuation” (Oldfield et al., [34]). It is worth noting that all of
the top five priorities listed below are related to the topic of evacuation (shown
italicised).

1. Research on the planning, design and implications of using elevators for

evacuation in tall buildings.

2. Research on appropriate evacuation and egress strategies for the

disabled (including emergency planning, the use of safety zones, etc.).

3. Research on strategies and technologies to deliver information to

occupants in evacuation / emergency scenarios (including dynamic route
guidance systems, integrated audio and video technology wireless
systems, occupants’ attitude to such systems and conformance to
legislation).

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4. Research on the use of elevators for evacuation post-extreme events, e.g.

after an earthquake.

5. Research on real time tall building evacuation management strategies and

technologies.

It is expected that as the number of high rise buildings increases and as the
elevator hardware technology advances in order to allow the elevator to fully
operate during emergency conditions that the full or partial evacuation by
elevators will become a building standard requirement.

This will have three-fold effect on the traffic engineering of elevators:

a. Evaluating the total evacuation time out of the building (denoted as egress
time) will become one of the user requirements for any traffic system
design in tall buildings.

b. The traffic system designer will have to ensure that the vertical
transportation system meets the egress time requirement as well as the
traditional ingress requirements. It has long been recognised that the
elevator system can carry as much as 50% extra handling capacity during
down peak as much as up-peak traffic, and this is a factor that will ensure
that elevator traffic system will not have to be enlarged to meet this
requirement.

c. Control system strategies will have to be developed in order to deal with

the most appropriate and the optimal method of partial or total evacuation
by elevators.

Siikonen and Hakonen [35] carried out a simulation into the use of stairs only,
elevators only and both stairs and elevators in the evacuation of tall buildings. A
number of important conclusions are drawn from the study:

1. The study concludes that for buildings with fewer than 15 floors the use of
stairs only for evacuation is faster than using elevators only. Thus it is
only worth considering the use of elevators for evacuation for building with
15 floors or more.

2. The study also shows that it is not necessary to artificially zone or sector
the building during evacuation in order to efficiently evacuate passengers
out of building. The modern group control systems automatically optimise
the operation and thus minimise the evacuation time. It is also not
necessary to encourage passengers to gather on every other floor or
every third floor (in refuges) in order to reduce the number of stops in the
round trip and thus reduce the evacuation time.

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3. The third and most important conclusion relates to the expected target
evacuation time. “If elevators are used in mega high-rise buildings during
an emergency situation, evacuation times can drop to 15-30 minutes
instead of [the current value of] 2-3 hours. In these buildings, shuttle
elevators may become a bottle-neck during the evacuation and down-
peak. Handling capacity of a shuttle elevator group with only two stops
can be considerably increased with double-deck or triple-deck elevators.”
(Siikonen and Hakonen, [35]).

Fortune [31] presents the concept of the lifeboat elevator, whereby the elevators
and the elevator shafts are fully equipped to continue operating for the full
evacuation of the building within a specified period of time (e.g., less than 60
minutes). In order for this to be possible, sufficient emergency power must be
available in order to operate the designated lifeboat elevators. A new phase 3
would be added to the standard phase 1 and phase 2 of the emergency
operation. Passengers will congregate on designated refuge floors, and the
lifeboat elevators will shuttle between each refuge floor and the building entrance
in order to complete the evacuation of the building tenants. Wit [36] presents an
overview of the work being carried out in the Netherlands to incorporate
evacuation by elevators in the national building code.

Guidelines have been provided in a CTBUH [37] study on the use of elevators for
building evacuation.

To sum up, the effect of such a requirement (i.e., the use of elevators for the
partial or full evacuation of a building using elevators) would be to transform the
elevator traffic design process for medium and high rise building such that the
egress time becomes an additional user requirement. Moreover, it is also
expected that the elevator group control system would evolve in order to meet
certain evacuation strategies.

8. HIGH RISE BUILDING DESIGN USING SIMULATION TO DEVELOP A

2D CHART
The first approach to the design of elevator traffic systems in high rise building
using simulation and a two-dimensional chart is presented in this section. It is
mainly based on reference [6]. For more information on the comparison between
calculation and simulation refer to [38].

8.1 Modelling Demand Parameters

The vertical transportation traffic design has been traditionally based on the
morning-peak-five-minute period. During these five minutes a certain percentage
of the building population is assumed to arrive in the main lobby(ies) requiring
transport to one of the upper floors.
During these five minutes, a group of passengers require to be
transported to the upper floors. This becomes more onerous as the number of
passengers arriving in five minutes increases or as the number of floors above

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the lobby increase. Thus, it is posited that the two most important parameters
that affect the design of the vertical transportation system are:

1. The number of passenger arriving in the lobby in the peak five minutes.

2. The number of floors above the lobby (assuming they are all populated
with equal populations).

Two previous pieces of work were developed in order to be used as simple-rule-

of-thumb methods in [39] and [40]. However, they did not address the issue of
zoning and were only intended for low rise buildings.
It is worth noting that the number of passengers arriving in the lobby in the
peak five minutes is the product of the total building population and the arrival
rate. The arrival rate is the percentage of the building population arriving in five
minutes and is also referred to as the handling capacity. If a constant arrival rate
is assumed for the design, then the two most critical parameters become:

1. The total building population (assuming a constant arrival rate of say 12%
or 15% of the building population in the busiest five minutes).

2. The number of floors above the lobby.

In effect this states that where two buildings have the same total populations but
a different number of floors above the lobby, then the demand of the higher rise
building will be more onerous. Moreover, where two buildings have the same
number of floors above the lobby, but different total populations, then the
demand of the higher population building will be more onerous.
Obviously, other parameters will have an effect, but are less important.
For example, the floor to floor height in an office building will generally be in the
order of 4 m and will not deviate dramatically from that figure for a real life
building (3.6 to 4.2 m). In a similar manner, passenger transfer times will always
be in the range of 1.2 second per passenger, and will not deviate dramatically
from this figure. Passenger transfer time is the time taken by one passenger to
board (or alight) from the elevator.
The analysis in this section will be limited to the following for simplicity and
brevity:

1. Office buildings. The work described here will be restricted to office

buildings. The two most widely used arrival rates have been applied,
namely 15% and 12% (percentage of the building population arriving in
the lobby in the busiest five minutes of 12% or 15% of the total building
population will be assumed).

2. Up peak traffic pattern (incoming traffic): The traffic design will be based
on an up-peak traffic pattern (incoming traffic into the building from the
lobby).

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3. A limit has been placed on the number of floors above the lobby of around
50 floors. Above 50 floors the classical design of travelling ‘direct-from-
ground’ ceases to be feasible due to the increase in core space used for
elevators, and sky lobbies have to be introduced. This is addressed in the
second part in this article and in [7].

4. A maximum number of elevators in one group has been set to 12

elevators. This assumes that certain measures are taken that will ensure
that passengers have sufficient time to approach the next elevator arrival
(e.g., the use of early elevator arrival announcement systems or
destination group control).

8.2 Analysis Methodology

To analyse this problem and find the effect of the total building population and
the number of floors above ground, the following approach has been followed:

1. Set a performance parameter for the vertical transportation system.

2. Take each combination of total building population and number of floors

above lobby. There are ten cases of total building population and 4 cases
of floors above lobby leading to 40 combinations. However, six
combinations are disallowed due to the low resultant per floor population,
resulting in 34 effective practical combinations.

3. Design a suitable elevator configuration that will achieve the performance

parameters set in 1 above for the combination selected in 2 above.

4. Repeat the design procedure in 3 above until designs have been found for
all the 34 combinations.

5. The results are then plotted on a chart to show the most suitable
configuration for each combination.

The following numbers of floors above lobby have been used: 10 floors, 20
floors, 30 floors and 40 floors.
The following numbers of total building populations have also been used
based on an arrival rate of 15%: 500, 1000, 1500, 2000, 2500, 3000, 3500,
4000, 4500 and 5000 persons. These would be equivalent to total populations of
625, 1250, 1875, 2500, 3125, 3750, 4375, 5000, 5625 and 6250 persons
respectively at an arrival rate of 12%. As far as the elevator system is concerned
a total building population of 2000 person with an arrival rate of 15% is identical
to a building with a total building population of 2500 person with an arrival rate of
12%. In both cases, 300 passengers will arrive in the lobby in the busiest five
minute period.

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Table 1: Possible and improbable combinations of total building

population and number of floors.
Total building population in persons (@15% arrival rate)
floors 500 1000 1500 2000 2500 3000 3500 4000 4500 5000
10 ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■
20 i/p* ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■
30 i/p* i/p* ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■
40 i/p* i/p* i/p* ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■
■ Possible combination
* Improbable configuration due to the low population per floor (i.e., less than 50
per floor).

8.3 Traffic Analysis

The design of the vertical transportation system for each case has been carried
out as follows:

1. A basic traffic analysis based on the interval and the handling capacity is
carried out to determine the required number of elevators with their
capacity and speed. A target interval of 30 seconds or less is used. An
arrival of 15% in the busiest five minutes is used along with the total
building populations of 500/1000/1500/2000/2500/3000/3500/4000/4500
and 5000 persons.

2. A further analysis is then carried out to assess the average waiting time,
average transit time and the average time to destination. The average
waiting time is the average time spent by passengers waiting for the
elevator in the lobby. The average transit time is the average time spent
travelling in the car by the passengers. The average time to destination is
the sum of the average waiting time and the average transit time. A target
of 30 s for average waiting time, 60 s for the average transit time and 90 s
for the average time to destination has been used based on the current
industry de facto standard of 30/60/90 [41], [42].

Elevate software revision 7.18 TC has been used for the traffic analysis above
[42]. Default values within elevate have been used unless otherwise specified
below. Step 1 above is carried out using the enhanced up peak calculation
mode. Step 2 above is carried out using the simulation mode with the Group
Collective mode (up peak 2). Under this simulation mode, the system is exposed
to a constant arrival of 15% for 15 minutes with pure incoming (up peak) traffic
only.

The following values have been assumed for traffic analysis parameters:

1. Floor to floor heights: 4 m.

2. Passenger transfer time: 1.2 s.
3. Acceleration: 1 m/s2.

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4. Jerk: 1.2 m/s3.

5. Other parameters have been given the default value from elevate.

The example below shows how one configuration was arrived at using
calculation and then simulation.

Example 1
The following example is used to illustrate the design process.

Let us assume a building with a total population of 2000 persons equally spread
over 10 floors above the lobby (200 persons per floor). The traffic analysis is first
carried out using calculation to arrive at the interval.

The following parameters have been used:

• Enhanced up peak mode.

• RTT losses: 0%
• Door opening time: 1.9 s
• Door closing time: 2.8 s
• No advanced door opening
• Acceleration: 1 m·s-2
• Jerk: 1 m·s-3
• Passenger transfer time: 1.2 s
• Start delay: 0.5 s
• Passenger mass: 75 kg
• Height of floors: 4 m (except ground floor: 5 m)
• 100% of population present (i.e., 0% absent)

Using 8 elevators rated at 2000 kg (26 persons) and running at 2.5 m/s, gives an
interval of 20.9 seconds at a car loading of 80.5%. Under the classical
assessment criterion of using the interval only, this arrangement would be
satisfactory and would provide an excellent level of service.
A second assessment is then carried out to assess the performance from
the point of view of the passenger. Under this scenario, the performance shows
that under up peak (incoming traffic) conditions at a constant arrival rate of 15%
for a duration of 15 minutes, the average waiting time, average transit time and
average time to destination are 105.1 s, 102.5 s and 207.6 s respectively. These
are unacceptable figures and well exceed the industry de facto standard of 30 s,
60 s, 90 s (average waiting time, average transit time, average time to
destination) [43].

The parameters used in the simulation mode are as follows:

• Simulation mode: Group collective, Up peak 2 mode.
• Number of simulations: 10.
• Door dwell time: 3 s.

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One method to reduce the transit time and hence the time to destination is to
zone the elevators during the morning up peak. Zoning restricts one group of the
elevators to serving a group of lower contiguous floors and the other group of
elevators to serving a group of upper contiguous floors.
The results of such zoning are shown in Table 2 below. The zones have
been set to an equal number of floors in this case (lower zone serving 1 to 5;
upper zone serving 6 to 10; all elevators serving Ground). This is not necessarily
the optimum solution and it is generally accepted that the lower zone could cover
a larger number of floors to account for the fact of the longer distance the
elevator serving the upper zone would have to travel.
The zoned solution with eight elevators in total, whereby four elevators
serve the lower zone (1 to 5) and the other four elevators serve the upper zone
(6 to 10) provides an excellent performance. However, dropping the number of
total elevator to seven provides a good performance that is within the 30/60/90
criterion, even though the average transit time slightly exceeds the 60 second
mark. Using six elevators in total exceeds the 30/60/90 criterion. Hence using
seven elevators in two zones is the selected configuration that uses the smallest
number of elevators while approximately meeting the 30/60/90 criterion.

Table 2: Passenger centred performance results for un-zoned and various

zoned configurations.
# Average Average Average time
waiting time transit time to destination
(s) (s) (s)
One zone with eight
1 105.1 102.5 207.6
elevators
Two zones with a total of
eight elevators, four
2 elevators for the lower zone 8 59.2 67.2
and four elevators for the
upper zone
Two zones with a total of
seven elevators, four
3 elevators for the lower zone 15 65.7 80.7
and three elevators for the
upper zone
Two zones with a total of six
elevators, three elevators for
4 26.1 67.6 93.7
the lower zone and three
elevators for the upper zone

The analysis above has only been based on the morning up peak. It is generally
accepted that if the configuration meets the 15% morning arrival rate, it can
comfortably meet a mixture of inter-floor lunchtime patterns. This however must
be confirmed for any specific building.

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8.4 Results
The design methodology followed in the example in the last section has been
used as the basis for compiling the data in the graph shown in Figure 1.

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No feasible
solution

Figure 1: Graphical representation of the most suitable elevator configurations for the various combinations of
total building population and number of floors.

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The following conclusions can be drawn from the graph shown in Figure 1:

1. The number of passengers arriving in the lobby in the busiest five minutes
is an important factor in deciding the design of the vertical transportation
system that can achieve the required performance. Based on either a
15% arrival rate or 12% arrival rate, this can be expressed as the total
building population. In fact that x-axis could be expressed as the number
of passengers arriving in the lobby in five minutes. However, it is more
convenient to use the total building population and assume a certain
arrival rate as a percentage of that population (e.g., 12% or 15%).

2. The other important factor in deciding the design of the vertical

transportation system is the number of floors above ground. As can be
seen from the figure, for the same total building population, as the number
of floors increase, more complex configurations are needed in terms of an
increase in the number of zones or the use of double deckers. For
example assuming a total building population of 2000 persons (and an
arrival rate of 15%), then two zones of elevators are needed for between
10 floors (7 elevators) and 20 floors (10 elevators), whereas three zones
are needed for 30 floors above the lobby (15 elevators) and four zones are
needed for 40 floor above the lobby (20 elevators).

3. It has been assumed that the lowest realistic floor population for an office
building is 50 persons per floor. This results in the shaded area that is
labeled as improbable floor areas. For example, for a total building
population of 1000 persons over 40 floors is an improbable combination
as it implies an unrealistic floor population of 25 persons.

4. It can be seen from the graph that the maximum number of floors that can
be served by a single group of elevators in one zone is around 16 floors.
This confirms the widely known rule of thumb in the industry.

8.5 Further Work

The work in this section has been restricted to office buildings. This is in
recognition of the fact that office buildings are in general the most onerous in
terms of the vertical transportation system requirements. Further work is needed
to assess other types of buildings such as hospitals, hotels, apartments, stadia,
theatres and educational establishment.
The other main restriction in this work has been the fact that it has been
based on the morning up-peak (incoming traffic) only. Further work is needed to
assess the performance of the various configurations under mixed traffic
configurations.

9. CONCLUSIONS
The vertical transportation design for a building requires the finding a suitable
elevator configuration. Each configuration specifies the number, speed and

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capacity of the elevators in each group. It also specifies the grouping of the
elevators and floors into zones, as well as any special features in terms of the
use of double decker elevators and group control algorithms.
A number of relevant issues have been discussed in the article including
the use of elevator for the evacuation for high rise buildings, the definition of
sectors, zone and stacks, and the special features that make the design for high
rise buildings much more involved as compared to low rise buildings.
Two approaches have been suggested for the design of elevator traffic
systems for high rise buildings. The first approach is based on using simulation
to develop a two-dimensional chart that depends on the building population and
the number of floors above the main entrance. The second approach is based
on applying rational rules to the results of calculation and simulation in order to
arrive at suitable designs for the elevator traffic systems for high rise buildings.
The two most important parameters that drive demand in a vertical
transportation system in a building are the total building population and the
number of floors served above ground. For a certain total building population,
the arrival rate for the busiest five minutes results in a certain number of
passengers arriving in the lobby in a five-minute period. Each configuration has
been arrived at by using the classical performance parameter, the interval, with a
target value of 30 seconds. The analysis is then also carried out using simulation
to assess the passenger-centric parameters of waiting time, transit time and total
time to destination with a target value of 30 seconds, 60 seconds and 90
seconds respectively. Using the two demand parameters and the results from
the analysis, a chart has been developed that can be used to guide the selection
of the best vertical transportation configuration.

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