As our cities grow upwards, vertical transportation systems become the cornerstone to support this development.
The analysis and design of the vertical transport is configured, in fact, as a crucial activity in the design of contemporary buildings, and, therefore, must be addressed already from the concept stage.
The appropriate vertical transportation solution will be a derivation of the scientific analysis of vertical traffic and simulations covering all aspects that may affect traffic management, including supplier standards, economic considerations and architectural requirements.
Establishing the “Traffic Patterns” is the first step to outlining a vertical transportation configuration and make a detailed projection of the users and the traffic pattern of the building. A study of the regular frequenters, distinguished between occupants and visitors, of their distribution by floor and their arrival, departure and movement schedules inside the building is required. Traffic inside a building depends on its characteristics, its size and requirements, its location as well as its opening hours. It is also important to note that the profile of the occupants of a building continuously changes over time. The project should, therefore, be able to accommodate changes in the needs and habits of users.
In every building there are critical peak moments that determine the necessary requirements for lifts. The concept must provide a sufficient service to meet peak time demands in terms of quantity and quality of the service, monitoring the waiting time of passengers.
In single-tenant buildings with users distributed over multiple floors, such as call centres, two-way and inter-floor traffic can have a significant impact on the efficiency of the lift system. The subsequent creation of a high traffic area, such as a restaurant, located on an intermediate floor, would completely alter the traffic pattern of the building. Further studies on the traffic generated by the new condition may be required.