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That's funny. I've also never seen one of those until I came to the US. Also, sometimes while I wait for the elevator I stop to think if the algorithms that power elevators are complex or not. I didn't know some companies ask that question during interviews. Now for sure I'll do some research on it.

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I once interviewed at a major German elevator manufacturer in the department that works on those traffic algorithms and from what I can tell, it is quite a complex problem for larger office buildings where you have a lot of traffic that mostly flows into one direction at various times of the day, such as in the morning or at lunchtime.

But they also told me that one of their main problems is that the optimal strategy often doesn't feel optimal to the customer, so that's why they sometimes use less-than-optimal strategies.

Sounded like an interesting job.

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