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Jan 14, 2015
Other Transit Techs

Going… Across? The Future of Elevators is Here

Post by chrisbilton

MULTI elevator. Image courtesy of ThyssenKrupp.

MULTI elevator. Image courtesy of ThyssenKrupp.

From mobile devices to urban planning, space is always at a premium. Ever-smaller devices like smartwatches are able to do infinitely more than the average home PC of a decade ago, while developers are stacking compacted living quarters higher and higher into the sky. Minuscule gadgetry has existed for centuries; the very idea of vertical living, however, has really only been with us for a little less than 100 years. And the (literal) rise of the skyscraper era is directly linked to the development of the modern elevator.

Outside of the go-anywhere elevator featured in the ending of the 1971 film Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, the basic idea of the elevator has remained more or less unchanged since it debuted. But whether glassed-in or high speed, they still only go up and down.

That is until late last year when German company ThyssenKrupp announced its MULTI elevator, which can go up and down as well as side to side. Instead of the traditional cables, the cabin is moved by magnetic force. (Bloomberg Businessweek has an excellent visual rendering of how it works.) Directional improvements aside, the new technology also means that cabins are considerably lighter and will be able to travel more efficiently through buildings. Accompanying the story was the staggering statistic that elevators take up 40 per cent of the space in an average condo tower.

Because elevators only move people short distances in isolated locations, few people think of them as public transit. But, as we’ve argued before, elevators are perhaps one of the most-used forms of public transit. According to the National Elevator Industry, the approximately 900,000 elevators in the US account for 18 billion passenger trips each year. However, the current model isn’t unlike a route serviced by a single bus that drives over to pick someone up when they call, and then drives back to the station after every trip—any real people-moving efficiency comes out of sheer dumb luck when someone happens to need a ride at the exact moment that the bus is going by (and in the direction it’s heading). The MULTI, by comparison, is purported to be super-efficient, such that wait times should be no more than 15-30 seconds at any time.

The technology is a little like the difference between fixed and detachable grips on cable cars. The former is organized so that cabins have to keep their position on the cable, and a delay at any point in the system will affect the entire line; the latter sees the cabins detach from the cable when they get to a station, so the speed at which they travel along the line can be better regulated for optimal efficiency.

Mostly, it seems that the MULTI is a modern rethinking of the Paternoster. Developed in the UK in the late-1800s, and used mainly during the early part of the 20th century, the Paternoster was always the most efficient elevation device because of it’s continually circulating mechanism. The only problem was that because cabins never actually stopped, people had to get on and off the elevators— as it was moving! Inevitably, this raised some serious safety concerns.

What the MULTI proves, however, is that it’s possible — and perhaps necessary — to reimagine even our most entrenched transit habits.

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