In message , at 17:21:33 on Sun,
15 Sep 2013, Mike Bristow remarked:
In article ,
Roland Perry wrote:
No, walking up both sides would be the most efficient.

Efficent? What are you optimising for? Throughput, or minimum journey
time?

Throughput.

ISTR that standing gives better throughput because people tend to
be happy leaving a small gap to the person in front when they stand,

But if they are walking up at the same speed as the escalator (ie
doubling their rate of progress) then they'll break even leaving twice
the gap. I don't think Londoners walking up escalators leave as much as
twice the gap.

but I can't find the any trace of the research I half-remember on the
web.

No, they are always wrong.

Not always.

Regarding where to stand on escalators, they almost always are.
--
Roland Perry

In message , at 17:22:40 on Sun, 15
Sep 2013, Eric remarked:
If only a couple of people are walking up the left-hand side then the
If escalator can only be working at 50% capacity.

Only if there's a queue to board.

Capacity has nothing to do with any queue there may or may not be.

OK, it only matters if there's a queue.

At busy times escalators would be more efficient if standing on both sides
At were compulsory.

No, walking up both sides would be the most efficient. But the compromise
is that people stand on one side, and walk up the other side.

Only if everyone was the same distance apart as if they were just standing
(unlikely) and everyone was moving at the same speed relative to the steps
(also unlikely). The "compromise" is a system that reduces throughput in
order to give the energetic able-bodied the ability to get through a bit
faster.

No, the throughput increases as long as the walkers don't more than
double their spacing.

The tourists are right.

No, they are always wrong.

You are being arrogant and xenophobic.

You are just as wrong to think that all tourists are foreigners.
--
Roland Perry

What truly annoys is when people noticeably slow down just before
getting onto the escalator and then stop before getting on, just so that
they can place their foot in the middle of the plate.

In article , (Phil) wrote:

Offramp writes:

If only a couple of people are walking up the left-hand side then the
escalator can only be working at 50% capacity. At busy times
escalators would be more efficient if standing on both sides were
compulsory. The tourists are right.

They would be even more efficient if everybody walked up them.

It would probably be even yet more efficient if everybody ran up them two
steps at a time as I often do. :-)

--
Colin Rosenstiel

Eric wrote in :

On 2013-09-15, John Levine wrote:
I don't know for sure, but wonder whether people walking up the
escalator tend to stay further apart than those who stand still? If
so, walking may actually reduce the capacity.

It may reduce the number on the escalator at any specific moment, but
it's unlikely to reduce the number tranported from the bottom to the
top per unit of time, since people who walk spend less time on the
esclator than people who don't.

What you need to measure is how many get off per unit time and nothing
else. How much time each spends on the escalator is not relevant to
that.

There used to be - maybe still is - a chap at Victoria underground who
would stand at the bottom of the escalators at busy times saying something
like 'come along now, two on every step', and that did seem to work in
clearing the backlog - ie two people standing on every step.

Of course if they could all then be persuaded to march up in perfect
synchrony (all together now, left, right, left, right) he'd probably get
even more throughput.

Peter

--
|| Peter CS ~ Epsom ~ UK | pjcs02 [at] gmail.com |

I do this at Angel every day. Why can't everyone do it?

Offramp wrote on 16 September 2013 16:24:24 ...
I do this at Angel every day. Why can't everyone do it?

You do WHAT? For goodness sake, why can't you quote from the post
you're replying to? Your posts are unintelligible as a result.
--
Richard J.
(to email me, swap 'uk' and 'yon' in address)

They would be even more efficient if everybody walked up them.

It would probably be even yet more efficient if everybody ran up them two steps at a time as I often do. :-)

-- Colin Rosenstiel