Escalator:
Project and installation for Escalator

Escalator
An escalator is a conveyor transport device for transporting people,
consisting of a staircase whose steps move up or down on tracks that
keep the surfaces of the individual steps horizontal.

A moving walkway, moving sidewalk, travelator, or travellator is a slow
conveyor belt that transports people horizontally or on an incline in a
similar manner to an escalator. In both cases, riders can walk or stand.
The walkways are often supplied in pairs, one for each direction.
Contents [hide]
1 Designs
1.1 Escalators
1.2 Moving walkways Escalator
1.3 High-speed walkways
1.4 Inclined moving sidewalks
1.5 Spiral escalators
2 History Escalator
3 Usage
4 Usage in Advertising
5 Accidents
6 Safety features Escalator
7 Safety tips
8 Longest escalators and systems
9 Science Fiction
10 Etymology Escalator
11 See also
12 External links

[edit] Designs
[edit] Escalators
Modern escalators have metal steps in a continuous loop that moves on
tracks. Escalators are typically used in pairs with one going up and the
other going down, however in some places, especially European stores and
metro station, there are no escalators going down; the escalators only
go up. Some modern escalators in stores and shopping malls have glass
sides that reveal their workings Escalator. Although most
escalators are straight, some shopping malls use curved versions.
Most escalators have moving handrails that approximately keep pace with
the movement of the steps. The direction of movement (up or down) can be
permanently the same, or be controlled by personnel according to the
time of day, or automatically be controlled by whomever arrives first,
whether at the bottom or at the top (of course the system is programmed
so that the direction is not reversed while somebody is on the escalator).
In the last two cases there has to be an alternative nearby Escalator.

Standard escalator step widths
Size Millimetres Inches Step capacity Applications
Very small 400 mm 16 in One passenger, with feet together An older
design, extremely rare today
Small 600 mm 24 in One passenger Low-volume sites, uppermost levels of
department stores, when space is limited
Medium 800 mm 32 in Escalator One passenger + one package or one
piece of luggage. Shopping malls, department stores, smaller airports
Large 1000 mm 40 in Two passengers - one may walk past another Mainstay
of metro systems, larger airports, train stations, some retail usage
[edit] Moving walkways
Moving sidewalk at Detroit's DTW airport.Moving walkways, also known as
moving sidewalks or travelators, are built in one of two basic styles:
Pallet type -- a continuous series of flat metal plates mesh together to
form a walkway. Most have a metal surface, though some models have a
rubber surface for extra traction.
Moving belt -- these are Escalator generally built with mesh
metal belts or rubber walking surfaces over metal rollers. The walking
surface may have a solid feel or a "bouncy" feel.
Both types of moving walkway have a grooved surface to mesh with
combplates at the ends. Also, all moving walkways are built with moving
handrails similar to Escalator those on escalators.
Moving walkways are often used in airports Escalator where there
is a long distance to walk between terminals, and in metro stations.
[edit] High-speed walkways
A first attempt at an accelerated walkway in the 1980s was the TRAX (Trottoir
Roulant Accéléré), which was developed by Dassault and RATP and whose
prototype was installed in the Paris Invalides metro station. Too
complex, with its foldable articulated plates, it was a technical
Escalator failure, which was never commercially exploited.
Experimental 185 metre long high-speed moving walkway on the Parisian
Métro.The speed of a moving walkway is usually 3 km/h, but there is a
high-speed version at Gare Montparnasse station in Paris. At first it
operated at 12 km/h but too many people were falling over, so the
Escalator speed was reduced to 9 km/h. It has been estimated that
commuters using a walkway such as this twice a day would save 11.5 hours
a year.
Using the high-speed walkway is like using any other moving walkway,
except that for safety there are special procedures to follow when
joining or leaving. When this walkway was introduced, staff (seen here
in yellow jackets) determined who could and who could not use it. As
Escalator riders must have at least one hand free to hold the
handrail, those carrying bags, shopping, etc., or who are infirm, must
use the ordinary walkway nearby.
On entering, there is a 10 m acceleration zone where the 'ground' is a
series of metal rollers. Riders must stand still with both feet on these
rollers and use one hand to hold the handrail and let it pull them so
that they glide over the rollers. The idea is to accelerate the riders
so that Escalator they will be travelling fast enough to step
onto the moving walkway belt.
Once on the walkway, riders can stand Escalator or walk; there is
no special sensation of travelling at speed owing to Newton's laws of
motion.
At the exit, there is a deceleration zone where again riders must stand
still and let the handrail pull them as they slow down, again while
gliding over metal rollers Escalator. Then they just walk off.
An inclined moving sidewalk at Beaudry metro station in Montreal.
[edit] Inclined moving sidewalks
An inclined moving sidewalk, also called a movator, travelator or moving
ramp, is used in airports and supermarkets to move people to another
floor with the convenience of an elevator (people can take along their
suitcase trolley or shopping cart) and the capacity of an escalator
Escalator. The carts have either a brake that is automatically
applied when the cart handle is released, or specially designed wheels
that secure the cart within the grooves of the ramp, so that it does not
run away down the ramp. Some department stores instead use an escalator
with a specially-designed chain, similar to those used on roller
coasters, to move specially-designed carts up and down a steeper slope
beside and at the same speed as the passenger escalator. The
Central-Mid-levels escalator system on Hong Kong Island, Hong Kong also
has several inclined moving sidewalks. In the Melbourne suburb of
Carlton another inclined Escalator moving sidewalk can be found
at Lygon Court.
An assortment of escalators in the Yokohama Minato Mirai 21.
[edit] Spiral escalators
Spiral escalators take up much less Escalator horizontal space
than straight escalators. However, early spiral designs were failures.
For example, one spiral escalator constructed by Reno in conjunction
with William Henry Aston and Scott Kietzman at London's Holloway Road
Underground station in 1906 [1] was dismantled almost immediately and
little of the mechanism survives. The Mitsubishi Electric Corporation
has developed successful commercial designs and has manufactured curved
and spiral escalators since the 1980s.
Notable sets of spiral escalators are located in the San Francisco
Shopping Centre in San Francisco, California, and at Forum Shops at
Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, Nevada. The Times Square shopping mall in
Causeway Bay, Hong Kong, also features four curved escalators, as does
Wheelock Place in Singapore Escalator.
[edit] History
In 1892, Charles A. Wheeler patented ideas for the first practical
moving staircase, though it was never built. Some of its features were
incorporated in the prototype built Escalator by the Otis
Elevator Company in 1899.
Jesse W. Reno, an 1883 engineering graduate of Lehigh University,
invented the first escalator and installed it as an amusement ride at
Coney Island, New York in 1897. This particular device was little more
than an inclined belt with wooden slats or cleats on the surface for
traction. The incline was as steep as 25°. Reno sold this machine to 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. Some escalators of this vintage were
still being used Escalator in the Boston subway until 1994.
Around the same time that Reno's invention appeared, Charles Seeberger
developed a form of escalator as well. This device actually consisted of
flat, moving stairs, not unlike the escalators of today, except for one
important detail: the step surface was smooth, with no comb effect to
safely guide the rider's feet off at the ends. Instead, the passenger
had to step off sideways. To facilitate this, at the top or bottom of
the escalator the steps continued moving horizontally beyond the end of
the handrail (like a mini-moving sidewalk) until they disappeared under
a triangular "divider" which guided the passenger to either side. The
first escalator installed on the London Underground Escalator was
one such Seeberger model; it was located at Earls Court, London, UK. A
good example of a Seeberger escalator, albeit without the divider, may
be seen in the 1916 Charlie Chaplin film The Floorwalker.
For a time, Otis Elevator sold both types of escalator. The company
later combined the best aspects of both the Reno (guiding slats) and
Seeberger (flat steps) inventions and in 1921 produced an escalator of
the type used today. These improvements in design brought the escalator
into extensive use in Escalator department stores, banks and
metro stations.
The German company Orenstein & Koppel (O&K) would also become a major
player in escalator design and manufacture.
The older lines of the London Underground had many escalators with
wooden steps until they were rapidly replaced following the fire at
King's Cross St. Pancras tube station in 1987. Old escalators with
wooden steps are still in use in some places, however, such as the Tyne
Cyclist and Escalator Pedestrian Tunnel in Tyne and Wear, England,
the Macy's department store in New York City, some floors of the Macy's
department store in downtown Pittsburgh, and the St. Anna Pedestrian
Tunnel underneath the Schelde in Antwerp, Belgium.
[edit] Usage
When using escalators, it is customary for passengers who wish to stand
and let themselves be carried up or down to stand on one side to allow
other users to walk past them. The observance of this custom varies
greatly from place to place—the rule is more likely to be adhered to,
for example, on the long escalators of an underground transport system
rather than in a department store. Additionally, it is customary to
stand on a fixed side, so that walking people do not have to zigzag. The
proper side for standing also varies, and does not necessarily
Escalator correspond with the rules of the road: in London,
Washington, D.C., Boston, Hong Kong and Moscow riders stand on the right;
in Singapore and Australia, on the left. The side for standing can also
vary within a country; in Japan, riders stand on the left in Tokyo but
on the right in Osaka. On the Montreal Metro, while walking on
escalators is theoretically forbidden, this rule is scarcely observed
and not at all enforced, and passengers tend to stand on the right. In
some countries, such as Escalator Ireland, there is no convention
and people stand on either side randomly as they please.
A mnemonic for the U.S./British convention on this point is that stand
and right each have five letters, while walk and left have four.
Sometimes escalators help in controlling traffic flow of people. For
example, an escalator to an exit effectively discourages most people
from using it as an entrance, and therefore does not require a regular
ticket check. As with turnstile jumping, this can be physically defeated
by someone able-bodied and Escalator determined to do so, but at
the price of making themselves conspicuous. Similarly, escalators often
are used as the exit of an airport secure area. Such an exit would
generally be manned to prevent its use as an entrance.
For fun, people sometimes use an escalator running in the opposite
direction, climbing up or down the stairs faster than it moves. This is
forbidden in some cities, notably Paris, Escalator where running
in the opposite direction can lead to being fined.
[edit] Usage in Advertising
Escalators have recently been used by various media agencies in
advertising campaigns with the handrails, side panels, or steps used for
advertising. Escasite is one example of an Escalator advertising
company that specializes in this.
[edit] Accidents
There have been various reports of people actually falling off a moving
escalator or getting their shoe stuck in part of the escalator. A few
fatal accidents are known to have involved escalators and travelators:
Eight people died and 30 more were injured on February 17, 1982, when an
escalator collapsed on the Moscow Metro. Faulty emergency brakes and
design flaws were later blamed for the accident.
On December 13, 1999, 8-year-old Jyotsna Jethani Escalator was
killed at New Delhi's international airport when a passenger's bag got
stuck in an escalator at the arrival lounge and ripped it open. Jyotsna
fell into the gaping hole that resulted.
Sally Baldwin, a professor of the University of York, was crushed to
death at Tiburtina Station in Rome on 28 October 2003 after a travelator
collapsed and she was pulled into the cogwheels.
On June 15, 2002, Andrea Albright, a 24-year-old JC Penney employee in
Columbia, Maryland, was critically injured while riding the store's
escalator from the first to the second level Escalator. She
somehow got her head caught between the escalator rail and a low ceiling.
Albright died 10 days later of massive injuries to the brain from lack
of oxygen. In 2005, her parents sued the property manager, two design
firms, and the escalator company for $5 million.
Francisco Portillo, a Salvadoran man living in Boston, died after
getting his hood stuck in an subway escalator on February 21, 2005.