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A Fujitec traction elevator in Block 192, Bishan, Singapore

A passenger elevator is designed to move people between a building's floors.

Passenger elevators capacity is related to the available floor space. Generally passenger elevators are available in capacities from 500 to 2,700 kg (1,000–6,000 lb) in 230 kg (500 lb) increments.[citation needed] Generally passenger elevators in buildings of eight floors or fewer are hydraulic or electric, which can reach speeds up to 1 m/s (200 ft/min) hydraulic and up to 3 m/s (500 ft/min) electric. In buildings up to ten floors, electric and gearless elevators are likely to have speeds up to 3 m/s (500 ft/min), and above ten floors speeds range 3 to 10 m/s (500–2,000 ft/min).[citation needed]

Sometimes passenger elevators are used as a city transport along with funiculars. For example, there is a 3-station underground public elevator in Yalta, Ukraine, which takes passengers from the top of a hill above the Black Sea on which hotels are perched, to a tunnel located on the beach below. At Casco Viejo station in the Bilbao Metro, the elevator that provides access to the station from a hilltop neighborhood doubles as city transportation: the station's ticket barriers are set up in such a way that passengers can pay to reach the elevator from the entrance in the lower city, or vice versa. See also the Elevators for urban transport section.

Types of passenger elevators

The former World Trade Center's twin towers used skylobbies, located on the 44th and 78th floors of each tower.

Passenger elevators may be specialized for the service they perform, including: hospital emergency (code blue), front and rear entrances, a television in high-rise buildings, double-decker, and other uses. Cars may be ornate in their interior appearance, may have audio visual advertising, and may be provided with specialized recorded voice announcements. Elevators may also have loudspeakers in them to play calm, easy listening music. Such music is often referred to as elevator music.

An express elevator does not serve all floors. For example, it moves between the ground floor and a skylobby, or it moves from the ground floor or a skylobby to a range of floors, skipping floors in between. These are especially popular in eastern Asia.

Capacity

Residential elevators may be small enough to only accommodate one person while some are large enough for more than a dozen. Wheelchair, or platform elevators, a specialized type of elevator designed to move a wheelchair 3.7 m (12 ft) or less, can often accommodate just one person in a wheelchair at a time with a load of 340 kg (750 lb).[76]

Freight elevators

A specialized elevator from 1905 for lifting narrow gauge railroad cars between a railroad freight house and the Chicago Tunnel Company tracks below

The interior of a freight elevator, shown on a college campus in North Carolina. It is very basic yet rugged for freight loading.

A freight elevator, or goods lift, is an elevator designed to carry goods, rather than passengers. Freight elevators are generally required to display a written notice in the car that the use by passengers is prohibited (though not necessarily illegal), though certain freight elevators allow dual use through the use of an inconspicuous riser. In order for an elevator to be legal to carry passengers in some jurisdictions it must have a solid inner door. Freight elevators are typically larger and capable of carrying heavier loads than a passenger elevator, generally from 2,300 to 4,500 kg. Freight elevators may have manually operated doors, and often have rugged interior finishes to prevent damage while loading and unloading. Although hydraulic freight elevators exist, cable-borne elevators, or traction elevators are more energy efficient for the work of freight lifting, especially in taller buildings.[citation needed]

Sidewalk elevators

A sidewalk elevator is a special type of freight elevator. Sidewalk elevators are used to move materials between a basement and a ground-level area, often the sidewalk just outside the building. They are controlled via an exterior switch and emerge from a metal trap door at ground level. Sidewalk elevator cars feature a uniquely shaped top that allows this door to open and close automatically.[77]

Stage lifts

Stage lifts and orchestra lifts are specialized elevators, typically powered by hydraulics, that are used to raise and lower entire sections of a theatre stage. For example, Radio City Music Hall has four such elevators: an orchestra lift that covers a large area of the stage, and three smaller lifts near the rear of the stage. In this case, the orchestra lift is powerful enough to raise an entire orchestra, or an entire cast of performers (including live elephants) up to stage level from below. There's a barrel on the background of the image of the left which can be used as a scale to represent the size of the mechanism

The pit beneath the orchestra lift at Radio City Music Hall

The pit beneath the orchestra lift at Radio City Music Hall

Orchestra lift at Radio City Music Hall as viewed from beneath the stage

Orchestra lift at Radio City Music Hall as viewed from beneath the stage

Vehicle elevators

Main article: Car elevator

Vehicular elevators are used within buildings or areas with limited space (in place of ramps), generally to move cars into the parking garage or manufacturer's storage. Geared hydraulic chains (not unlike bicycle chains) generate lift for the platform and there are no counterweights. To accommodate building designs and improve accessibility, the platform may rotate so that the driver only has to drive forward. Most vehicle elevators have a weight capacity of 2 tons.

Rare examples of extra-heavy elevators for 20-ton lorries, and even for railcars (like one that was used at Dnipro Station of the Kyiv Metro) also occur.

Boat lift

Main article: Boat lift

In some smaller canals, boats and small ships can pass between different levels of a canal with a boat elevator rather than through a canal lock.

Aircraft elevators

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An F/A-18C on an aircraft elevator of USS Kitty Hawk

For aircraft

On aircraft carriers, elevators carry aircraft between the flight deck and the hangar deck for operations or repairs. These elevators are designed for much greater capacity than other elevators, up to 91,000 kg (200,000 lb) of aircraft and equipment. Smaller elevators lift munitions to the flight deck from magazines deep inside the ship.

Within aircraft

On some passenger double-deck aircraft such as the Boeing 747 or other widebody aircraft, elevators transport flight attendants and food and beverage trolleys from lower deck galleys to upper passenger carrying decks.[78] Franklin Roosevelt had a retractable elevator installed on a Douglas C-54 Skymaster to allow him to board the aircraft in his wheelchair.[79]

Limited use and limited application

The limited-use, limited-application (LU/LA) elevator is a special purpose passenger elevator used infrequently, and which is exempt from many commercial regulations and accommodations. For example, a LU/LA is primarily meant to be handicapped accessible, and there might only be room for a single wheelchair and a standing passenger.

Residential elevator

A residential elevator with integrated hoistway construction and machine-room-less design

A residential elevator or home lift is often permitted to be of lower cost and complexity than full commercial elevators. They may have unique design characteristics suited for home furnishings, such as hinged wooden shaft-access doors rather than the typical metal sliding doors of commercial elevators. Construction may be less robust than in commercial designs with shorter maintenance periods, but safety systems such as locks on shaft access doors, fall arrestors, and emergency phones must still be present in the event of malfunction.

The American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) has a specific section of Safety Code (ASME A17.1 Section 5.3) which addresses Residential Elevators. This section allows for different parameters to alleviate design complexity based on the limited use of a residential elevator by a specific user or user group. Section 5.3 of the ASME A17.1 Safety Code is for Private Residence Elevators, which does not include multi-family dwellings.[80]

Some types of residential elevators do not use a traditional elevator shaft, machine room, and elevator hoistway. This allows an elevator to be installed where a traditional elevator may not fit, and simplifies installation. The ASME board first approved machine-room-less systems in a revision of the ASME A17.1 in 2007. Machine-room-less elevators have been available commercially since the mid 1990s, however cost and overall size prevented their adoption to the residential elevator market until around 2010.[81]

Also, residential elevators are smaller than commercial elevators. The smallest passenger elevator is pneumatic, and it allows for only 1 person.[82] The smallest traction elevator allows for just 2 persons.[83]

Dumbwaiter

Main article: Dumbwaiter

Dumbwaiters are small freight elevators that are intended to carry food, books or other small freight loads rather than passengers. They often connect kitchens to rooms on other floors. They usually do not have the same safety features found in passenger elevators, like various ropes for redundancy. They have a lower capacity, and they can be up to 1 metre (3 ft) tall. Control panels at every stop mimic those found in passenger elevators, allowing calling, door control and floor selection.

Paternoster

A paternoster in Berlin, Germany

Main article: Paternoster elevator

A special type of elevator is the paternoster, a constantly moving chain of boxes. A similar concept, called the manlift or humanlift, moves only a small platform, which the rider mounts while using a handhold seen in multi-story industrial plants.

Scissor lift

A mobile scissor lift, extended to near its highest position

The scissor lift is yet another type of elevator. These are usually mobile work platforms that can be easily moved to where they are needed, but can also be installed where space for counter-weights, machine room and so forth is limited. The mechanism that makes them go up and down is like that of a scissor jack.

Rack-and-pinion elevator

Rack-and-pinion elevator are powered by a motor driving a pinion gear. Because they can be installed on a building or structure's exterior and there is no machine room or hoistway required, they are the most used type of elevator for buildings under construction (to move materials and tools up and down).[84][85]

Material handling belts and belt elevators

Material transport elevators generally consist of an inclined plane on which a conveyor belt runs. The conveyor often includes partitions to ensure that the material moves forward. These elevators are often used in industrial and agricultural applications. When such mechanisms (or spiral screws or pneumatic transport) are used to elevate grain for storage in large vertical silos, the entire structure is called a grain elevator. Belt elevators are often used in docks for loading loose materials such as coal, iron ore and grain into the holds of bulk carriers

There have occasionally been belt lifts for humans; these typically have steps about every 2 m (6 ft 6.7 in) along the length of the belt, which moves vertically, so that the passenger can stand on one step and hold on to the one above. These belts are sometimes used, for example, to carry the employees of parking garages, but are considered too dangerous for public use.