ESCALATORS

• An escalator is a DEFINITION
conveyor type
transport device that
moves people. It is a
moving staircase with
steps that move up
or down using a
conveyor belt and
tracks keeping each
step horizontal for
the passenger.
 HISTORY
• In 1892, Charles A. Wheeler patented ideas for the
first practical moving staircase, though it was never
built.
• Jesse W. Reno invented the first escalator and
installed it as an amusement ride at Coney Island,
New York in 1897.
• Charles Seeberger further developed it and joined
the Otis Elevator Company in 1899, and together
they produced the first commercial escalator which
won a first prize at the Paris
1900 Exposition Universelle in France.
HOW ESCALATORS WORK
• The core of an escalator is a pair of
chains, looped around two pairs of
gears. An electric motor turns the drive
gears at the top, which rotate the chain
loops. A typical escalator uses a 100
horsepower motor to rotate the gears.
The motor and chain system are
housed inside the truss, a metal
structure extending between two floors.
HOW ESCALATORS WORK (CONT.)
• Instead of moving a flat surface, as in a
conveyer belt, the chain loops move a series
of steps. As the chains move, the steps
always stay level. At the top and bottom of
the escalator, the steps collapse on each
other, creating a flat platform. This makes it
easier to get on and off the escalator. In the
diagram below, you can see how the
escalator does all of this.
HOW ESCALATORS WORK (CONT)
• Each step in the escalator has two sets
of wheels, which roll along two separate
tracks. The upper set (the wheels near
the top of the step) are connected to the
rotating chains, and so are pulled by the
drive gear at the top of the escalator.
The other set of wheels simply glides
along its track, following behind the first
set.
HOW ESCALATORS WORK
 SPEED
• Escalator speeds vary
from about 90 feet per
minute to 180 feet per
minute (27 to 55 meters
per minute). An escalator
moving 145 feet (44 m)
per minute can carry
more than 10,000 people
an hour -- many more
people than a standard
elevator.
 TRIVIAS
• Escalator = Scala
+Elevator 
the name 'escalator'
came from the word
'scala', which is
Latin for steps and
the word 'elevator',
which had already
been invented.
 TRIVIAS
• on the London Underground and the
Washington Metro, and in Hong Kong,
one stands on the right; in Australia on
the left. In the Montreal Metro, there is
no rule, as passengers are supposed
not to walk on the escalators,
 TRIVIAS
• the Mid-levels, a residential district hundreds
of feet uphill, using a long distance system of
escalators and moving sidewalks called the
Central-Mid-Levels escalator. It is the world's
longest outdoor escalator system (not a
single escalator span), at a total length of
800m. It goes only one way at a time; the
direction reverses depending on rush hour
traffic direction.
 TRIVIAS
• The longest escalator in the Western
Hemisphere is at the Wheaton station of
the Washington Metro subway system.
It is 508ft (155m) long.
 POMPIDOU CENTER

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