Elevator Control Panels (2004)

Yeah used to get spam calls all the time in my apartment’s elevator. All automated messages.

I've seen ones where the number is written on it somewhere.

It's not the only form of bias in the post. Just looking at the first pair, he seems to be implicitly criticizing the inclusion of braille for introducing additional elements into the design? What does he expect in a hospital?

I'm not familiar with that particular hospital in Atlanta, and I think the panel could be improved. But in my experience working in hospitals, there can be really weird floor layouts that make navigation confusing in general, not just for elevators.

Hospitals also need clear communication for staff to increase response speed. If you say "Floor 3" it might be really unclear what floor on what subunit of what building you're referring to, but a color could be a clearly defined zone.

Part of what he's doing is holding up as ideal examples places whose architecture and use makes simple elevator control design possible. I think it's good to highlight elevator control design, but I have a number of issues with the way he's approaching the discussion.

I did find the criticism of the Reykjavík lift a bit obnoxious. It only takes a moment of research to find out that K is for kjallara.

The horizontal buttons might actually be useful for someone who struggles to reach to the top of the panel.

Not only that, but if it's a capacitive screen you can't use it with gloves.

Call panel not in the cab -- so you must be talking about a "destination dispatch" system. With DD, you go to a call kiosk, and enter your desired destination floor, and the kiosk tells you which car to take. DD systems are done because it allows for much more sophisticated scheduling, and larger elevator lobbies with longer walk times, the net result being much better capacity, especially at peak traffic times.

In the cab you will typically have a button to take you back to the lobby in case you didn't get off on your desired floor and can't enter another call.

Modern destination dispatch systems are integrated with RF badge readers so that the elevator system can be programmed with your office floor, and so you don't need to go to the kiosk at all, just walk past it, and it will schedule your to a car to take you to your office floor.

The scheduler can group passengers together to get fewer stops, and longer express zones. Also, it makes double-deck elevators practical. Consider the elevators in the Willis Tower in Chicago. These are double-deck cabs, and it takes about three floors for the cab to accelerate to or decellerate from express speed and make a stop. Considering the number of people that system moves daily, it would be impossible to do without DD.

> the ground floor is E (presumably for German Eingang = entrance)

That would be "Erdgeschoss", which exactly means "ground floor".

Some elevators have this by double-pressing the button. I've only seen it work on maybe 20% of them though.

According to this article Hitachi and Otis elevators have exactly that.

https://soranews24.com/2017/08/18/the-secret-undo-codes-for-...

This is quite common in buildings with lots of traffic. Working out how to route people most efficiently would be a fun problem to tackle too.

Won't help. Most large hospitals are odd conglomerations of buildings constructed at different times to different codes; the sixth floor of an old one may be smoothly connected to the fifth floor of a new one, with stairs between the two on floors three and four (accessibility is maintained by having elevators in the new wing have rear entrances to the "old" side, but you sort of have to know whether you want 4 or 4R). The stairs do not necessarily connect to all floors. Etc. If you spend a long time in one, you will eventually learn most of the tricks, but even then there are likely to be some surprises out there. Floors that only one or two elevators out of a large bank will go to, for example.