To be honest, I do the same all the time, and it only saves 30 s but if that’s the difference between catching a connection in SF or not then that’s a 20 minute savings it could be.
In London this is less true, but I admit to still walking up.
> if that’s the difference between catching a connection in SF or not then that’s a 20 minute savings it could be
Here's a heuristic you should try applying: under some reasonable assumptions, getting to the platform X seconds earlier should shave X seconds off your commute in expectation and not affect the variance. (Those assumptions are basically "you're not trying to catch a particular train.")
Of course, you may have a nonlinear objective function in terms of time/delay, or you may be optimising for regret instead of arrival time, and in those cases the analysis may turn out differently.
The right answer (in practice, though I admit the question is fun) is to "use your debit/credit card" (on the Tube, for instance) for the train or "set up auto-load if your transit system doesn't accept credit/debit cards" (on BART, for instance).
That's old-school thinking from a time where you only have a wide probability distribution. Modern commuters have BART timings on an app. The distribution is pretty tight: the train is arriving between 0 and 90 s from now and you're at the top of the stairs.
Naturally, everyone's worked out that heuristic while waiting for the college bus. It's the problem that's changed.
It is worth noting that the Holborn London Underground experiment described in the article only took place on one of the systems longest escalators, where it's unlikely that many people were walking up the full length anyways so there was wasted capacity.
I feel like it would hold less true for a 3m or 4m escalator that most people would feel comfortable walking up.
It does acknowledge that. “A 2002 theoretical study suggested that when escalators reach more than 60 feet high, fewer people will climb them, leaving ample space to carry standing passengers.”
Not quite sure what a ‘theoretical study’ means in this context though.
They link to their previous reporting on the study, but the link provided there to the actual study is dead.
I would assume that a 'theoretical study' would involve some type of passenger flow modeling, which TfL often use to measure expected passenger flows in projects like the Bank upgrade, layout of Crossrail stations, future upgrades like Camden Town, etc. The problem with modeling is that it assumes all your inputs are correct, and there are so many confounding factors in the operation of a Tube station that there's no real replacement for a real study.
I only put in the disclaimer about height because while it's mentioned with the theoretical study, it's not mentioned with one of the only actual experiments, and Holborn is a 23m long escalator, which you wouldn't know unless you use Holborn. These findings wouldn't be very helpful in New York, for example, where most stations are so close to the surface that you're only traveling one or two stories.
I’ve definitely seen this dynamic at long and steep escalators at airports — people won’t walk it. But it completely changes on the normal sized ones, which are a lot more common.
“And in some stations, security staff with neon-colored vests stand watch and guide people.“ if they really want to prevent people walking, just get a staff member to stand still on the escalator. It will cause traffic and normalise standing. They can ride up and down for an hour at rush hour. It prevents the natural segregation into people who are rushing and people who are not, but is probably still worth it at busy times particularly if not many people want to walk up a long escalator.
If my city recruited standing escalator riders to volunteer, I'd probably sign up for at least one shift. Escalators are sweet!
Fun fact for readers in the Washington DC area... At 230ft (70m), the DC Metro Wheaton station escalator is thd longest escalator in the western hemisphere! [1]
At least in Helsinki most subway stations have an escalator, and an elevator for wheelchairs and trolleys, but no stairs (apart perhaps from a separate staircase somewhere for emergencies).
People who climb the stairs one step at the time should kindly stay to the right. Leave the left side open for those of us who climb two steps at a time.
People who are rushing may need the speed advantage of walking up escalators, which is faster than walking up stairs.
I’ve caught a long distance train with less than a minute to spare, which had I missed it, would have delayed my journey by an hour before the next train. It shouldn’t have been that close, I left with plenty of time to get to the main railway station via the Underground, but sometimes multiple subway lines have issues and you get cascading failures that leave you with no other choice but to run up escalators or miss your transport (especially if it avoids having to buy another train/plane ticket)
“Walking on escalators may lead to accidents caused by collisions or luggage.”
I'm sensing zero-risk bias, typical for modern western societies. For me, there is absolutely no reason to stand on the escalator, unless handicapped of course.
Tiredness, luggage, children, trying to make sense of directions, being in company... so many reasons not to walk. In fact, I bet most people never walk at all on an escalator.
Do those people get stuck in place when walking into a staircase, until paramedics come to rescue them? Escalators are just stairs, except you get to the other end faster.
Being tired is a fair point, but that's why there was left/right side compromise.
This is how I’ve always thought about it, but I’m realizing now that that’s the minority opinion. From the user’s reference frame, escalators behave the same as stairs until you hit the end (as long as you don’t sit on the railing thingy)
Wow. I’ve always been so baffled by this mentality.
The number of people who are otherwise healthy but refuse to walk up stairs just shocks me. I’ve never felt like walking up an escalator carried any significant risk for the able bodied...
I don’t know how to explain it except that people are shockingly lazy and just overall have really screwed up risk assessment
My explanation is, the escalators and elevators are the "little socialism" for the people: they provide free service and in order to consume it fully, nobody moves. I have friends running marathons but still using elevators when on work.
I'll go a step further and say, if escalators are really so dangerous that we need to prevent people from walking on them, than they're too dangerous to begin with and should be removed in favor of elevators, ramps, etc.
As far as I'm aware, though, escalators are not a leading cause of death.
On very busy or very long escalators, standing is probably faster for everyone. However, most escalators aren't that long, aren't that busy and are a fair bit slower than walking. In which case everyone should ideally be walking. But because lots of people have luggage or aren't comfortable walking up escalators, the whole walk left/stand right thing feels like a pretty decent compromise.
What the world really needs is more stairs for those who are able, and more lifts for those who have difficulties with stairs. Or maybe multi-lane, variable speed walking escalators, but I guess those are sci-fi...
> "On very busy or very long escalators, standing is probably faster for everyone. "
How so? I don't see how an escalator could possibly be slower than everybody standing (discounting the possibility of somebody actually walking backwards.)
> "Or maybe multi-lane, variable speed walking escalators, but I guess those are sci-fi... "
I've badly wanted to try that ever since I read Caves of Steel. It sounds terrifying but exhilarating.
You can probably safely fit more people on the escalator if everyone stands still, so while individuals would be going slower, overall throughput on the escalator would be higher.
Somebody walking on the elevator does not inhibit the person behind him from standing still. The person who stands behind a walker is going to get on and off the elevator at the same times.
This thought experiment about 2 people makes sense on a short, unfrequented, escalator. The conversation is on long busy escalators however and someone will almost always be sandwiched between two people in that scenario. If not there wouldn't be any concerns about throughput considering one lane is already used for walkers.
The article and studies it's discussing are about the scenario where standers avoid the left side of the escalator because they think it's reserved for walkers. But what I'm saying is that allowing walkers to walk whenever there is opportunity while also telling standers to use both sides gives you identical throughput to everybody standing (while allowing any walker who gets the opportunity to get off the escalator faster.)
If walkers are allowed to walk on the left whenever noone is standing in front of them, then I will naturally tend to avoid standing on the left. Unless the left is already blocked by other standers.
I'm not sure how to break this to you, but walkers can also walk on the right when nobody is standing in front of them. I've been doing it my entire life and not once has anyone stopped me.
If everybody steps onto the elevator at a set rate, momentarily stands still, then some of them begin walking forward iff there is space to do so, how does that cause reduced throughput?
To be clear, I'm not talking about some sort of "walk on the left" convention, which plainly reduces throughput. I'm talking about the "walk if you want to no matter what side you're on" convention, which seems to be far more universal.
Walking on elevators does not cause more cue than standing on them. Two people can step onto an escalator and if the one in front then takes a step forward because the one behind was inside his personal space, the one behind is not impacted.
Furthermore since stepping onto an escalator necessarily involves walking up to that escalator, if the minimum distance between people walking were causing a throughput limitation that would manifest whether or not people on the escalator were walking.
Or they could just turn up the escalator speed a bit. A mere 10% speed increase would probably make a big difference, but I suppose there are almost certainly regulations on how fast an escalator can run.
I've wondered about this as well. Different places seem to have different escalator speeds. It's been a while since I last saw someone who was too afraid to get on an escalator, but I do frequently unsteady elderly folks who struggle a bit. I guess that's the demographic that's preventing faster escalator speeds.
Walking does cause a larger queue as people get on one side (non walking) of esclator mostly . So 1 person gets on instead of 2. I have now started standing in what is considered the walking lane once people see that I am not going to climb they got on behind me and the throughout of the elevator increases.
If everyone is standing still they can be closer to each other so more people can be on the escalator at the same time, so more people can make the trip in the same time, just like how driving at a slower speed prevents congestion because the drivers have to keep less distance. This has of course been measured.
If the escalator is packed the people on it can’t start walking because there is no space. And escalators are often packed in stations, for instance when a train arrives and a thousand passengers get off the train at the same time.
yeah, I'm also tired of lets force everyone to do something to speed up the mean, when what we really care about as anything in this universe is the tails. some people dont need to rush to make their next flight, but some do.
the reasoning in the article and the exhortation to stand are both a bit dubious. injuries are more likely due to differential attentiveness between walkers and standers, rather than the walking itself. standers tend to be less attentive to others because standing allows you to let your collision detection guard down.
you could also have fewer injuries hy getting everyone (except those who can't) to walk, which would also result in a lower overall difference in attentiveness.
I think it's even less likely to get everyone to walk than to stand though and I think everyone could agree all standing as proposed is likely safer than all walking anyways.
my point was that the safety argument is specious, not to argue about what was more likely to be implemented. getting hurt on an escalator is just not a real problem, and the safety bugaboo is used as a way to regulate other people's behavior needlessly.
we don't need more silly regulations like this when things like distracted driving and air pollution are real problems that kill thousands of people.
Your original comment actually said nothing about over-regulation or escalator safety not being a real problem. It did however claim to have a better solution to safety concerns that were contradictory to the claims of the article(s).
Fascinating, but wouldn't it be a healthier norm to want everyone (who is physically capable) to walk on the escalator?
It baffles me how many people automatically stop being active just because there's an escalator. Surely a better social norm is to encourage even mild activity and exercise?
Of course if you're exhausted or have luggage or are in tall heels or are holding a baby then by all means stand -- but stand to the side. Most of the time that won't be the case, so everyone walking will be a better overall optimization, and especially the fact that there are usually elevators in modern buildings as well that are better accomodating for luggage and babies and the disabled as well.
If people aren't moving, how do they get bunched together? My theory is that if people who are spread apart stand still, even on an escalator, they will remain spread apart.
After RTFA, I still don't see what the explanation is supposed to be for the claimed increase in throughput.
Oh, I get it now. In the limit, say 99.9% of people want to stand, so if they are all on one side, then half of the capacity is lost to the few walkers, in theory. But this is an absurd way to define efficiency, because the standers by definition aren't in a hurry. How often is there a backup at the entrance to an escalator anyway?
In central London, at rush hour, especially if tourists are present? Often. I used to travel through Holborn regularly, and simply walking through the short tunnel from platform to escalator would take (what felt like) 10 minutes on bad days, with people literally packed tight. The fully standing escalators stopped that happening. Other stations have the same issue.
In Tokyo when a train arrives, there is always a fairly long queue at the bottom of the escalator. In fact, the queue is so long that it is often impossible to get to the stairs to avoid the escalator. It usually interferes with the queuing of the trains on the platform as well. I can definitely see why they want to do this and it's probably a good idea. I very highly doubt that it will work. Even I will feel too weird to do it unless everybody else does it. They may have to seed the crowd with fake travelers just to get people to start.
As a New Yorker, hearing that people purposely queue and wait just to ride on the right side of the escalator when the left side is unused blows my mind.
The standard when standing is to have one person per two escalator steps. When walking, there is typically a slightly larger gap to allow for more space.
> When one side isn't reserved for walkers, it saves time for everyone. But transit users around the world just can’t be convinced.
Just spend some time in Belgium. We are unable to form orderly queues. Elevators are like moving grapes of humans, lines in fast food are flocks of people going back and forth between the end of the line, the cash register and the spot for food delivery and people are piling on top of each other at bus stops.
At peak times in Hong Kong's subway, it pains me to see one side of the escalator basically empty. Normally I walk up, so that should make things faster for me, except it's impossible to get to the escalator for the queue of people. If people just used both sides it would be faster - for everyone.
In the Shanghai subway system, the normal case is that one half of the escalator walks and the other stands still. But when the crowd is large, population pressure forces both halves to stand still.
This experience made me surprised that Tokyo would need to implement such a system top-down; I figured their crowds would be large enough that it was happening anyway.
Looks like "better" queueing behavior may be responsible for the failure.
I now take it upon myself to be the first person” sometimes. If I see a long line forming to stand, and no one is walking at all, I will stand in the “walking” lane.
After that I see a lot of people with relief on their faces when they stand behind me.
I guess it also helps that I’m bald, Asian guy with a long beard. so maybe they think I’m a bum. Otherwise there were times I’ve seen people admonish the standers.
I get to the subway via one of the long and steep escalators mentioned in the article. I'd say about 30-35% of people walk down and 10-15% walk up. I walk up and down.
Few general remarks:
1. If people have lots of luggage or aren't comfortable using the escalator, they can take the elevator (and they do).
2. Saying that standing would prevent accidents is like saying banning cars would prevent accidents - not a particularly helpful observation. Humans are only willing to minimize risk up to a point.
3. The more complicated argument in the article is that standing would increase capacity. I don't know - I avoid rush hour, but the escalators seem empty enough so that I can walk up/down unobstructed. It's hard for me to see how I'm negatively affecting capacity. In cases where the escalator is packed, I'll stand rather than being pushy, but that never happens during the week.
I was in Tokyo a couple years ago and was incredibly impressed with how everyone acted on their subway and the escalators there. Incredible amount of people being in sync. No way that's comparable to London which is what half the article talks about.
I really dislike these types of articles that try to use stats for reasoning. They claim that between 2013 and 2014, so over 365 days, there were 1475 total accidents, 880 from being "improper"? What qualifies as an accident? And what's improper? If there are that many issues? Why not only make stairs? (They have those too). Another "study" is listed saying that in London, "reduced congestion by 30 percent" whatever that means. And another reasoning I disagree wit (one that can't be proven let's be honest) is that this will stop people from being jerks on the escalators. I'm pretty sure that this would annoy more people if they're unable to get by.
The only possibly reasoning is that for super long escalators, very few people walk, so half the capacity is being used.
I'll give JR East credit. If they think double side standing should be the way to go, trying it out for a month and seeing how it goes is a great way of handling it, instead of forcing it from now on and having too much confidence in success as is mostly the case in these social change campaigns.
One more thing, why is the url's slug pretty much completely different? What was the article about before? And by the way, in Tokyo, walkers go up the right side, standers are on the left. You can even see that in the picture at the top of the page. Pretty sure if you're writing about escalators in Tokyo you should mention that.
What this article misses, and what JR East won't tell you, is that having people walking on escalators reduces their operable life span without maintenance; and thus increases the costs of running a train station. (JR East posts profits every quarter despite their escalator maintenance)
This is napkin math, but: Wikipedia says Japan's train ridership was 7.58 billion in 2014. Compared to 880 injuries, that's roughly a 1 in 1 million chance.
This is WMATA’s stated reason for not suggesting or enforcing “stand right, walk left” on the Washington Metro. They ostensibly want no one walking on either side.
This is a problem that's solvable with computer vision and face recognition. Just fine everybody. Somebody's face can't be recognized or linked to an account? Pay them a visit. With time it should be rare enough.
Another similar topic is the "moving walkways" at airports that give you a big speed boost if you actually walk on them, but are slower than walking if you just stand on them. There seems to always be a group of people standing side-by-side on those just chatting away, making it so others can't walk past them. Those are wide enough to stand on one side and let others pass, but they rarely do.
Again and again when this comes up, people look at the wrong metric: throughput. Walking on the left is not about optimising for throughput: it optimises for customer happiness . It is like a priority queue: in a hurry? Walk. Okay with waiting? Stand. To people who are in a rush, the ability to walk is worth very much. To people who are not, having to wait a few more seconds matters relatively less.
Standing on the right, walking on the left is a form of "rush discrimination".
If you just look at throughput, you're measuring the wrong thing. Try to measure how people feel! The fact Londoners would flip experimenters the bird when asked to stand on the left, should tell you what you need to know.
Of course, my perspective crucially ignores one category: people in a rush, who can't climb an escalator. They are disadvantaged by this. How many of them there are, I don't know, so perhaps I'm being incredibly tone-deaf.
It is "only a minute of your life" start to become critical when the next train leave one hour later. It does improve throughput a lot in public transportation situations, not so much in shopping malls.
To play the devil’s advocate, might this incentivize people to arrive earlier? Admittedly some train schedules might need to be adapted to make connections possible.
Yep. That minute multiplies ten-fold or more if it means being the difference between catching your next bus/train/etc. just in time or having to wait for the next one.
researchers are probably optimizing ahead of time. by the time the trains start spitting people out faster than the single-file escalators can clear them, the human crush will force standing on both sides naturally, whether people like it or not. maybe there wasn't a need for policy makers to research and intervene this early.
i don't think we are there yet, because there is still some space, albeit with a bit of jostling, to move around in holborn. the platforms are not at full-capacity and commuters can still alight.
Then there’s the added bonus that it may finally stop people from being jerks on the escalator—like the London commuter captured in a viral video this year telling a blind man with a guide dog to let go of the handrail so he can pass him.
Someone with a guide dog -- a clear signal of special need -- can have their need for reasonable accommodation utterly ignored. It can be worse for the many people who are less obviously impaired who lack some clear public signal.
I'm seriously handicapped. Most people cannot tell that by looking at me. I gave up my car more than a decade ago and I mostly get around by walking, so a lot of people see me as unusually able-bodied because I walk everywhere.
But I have serious trouble navigating certain situations, such as stairs. Escalators are hard for me because they are moving and I'm visually impaired and I walk with a permanent limp and I have joint issues and yadda. It's stressful for me to deal with the transition to step onto the escalator and stressful for me to deal with the transition to step off the escalator and I generally cannot cope with walking on the escalator. I stand on it.
I don't really understand why you are chiming in to make that observation, but I will note that he stated that he didn't think he was being inconsiderate.
There are lots of different types of handicaps in the world. Some people have social impairments. This often gets labeled Autism Spectrum Disorder.
I have two sons who needed a lot of social stuff explained when they were little. They didn't readily get it.
I think there is a larger learning curve for social things than is generally appreciated. I am a big believer that decent adults are made, not born.
Regardless, people like me have the additional issue that people who would never do something like that to a blind person will still do it to me, not realizing that I'm in genuine danger of being seriously hurt because of their behavior because I sometimes really struggle with seemingly small things.
Getting on and off a bus is also kind of a nerve-wracking production for me. Most other people just step on or off. I cannot do that. I routinely cling to whatever handholds are available. Yet I don't use a cane, walker or other device that would signal to other people that I'm seriously impaired. So sometimes people seem to just find me annoying, presumably not realizing this is actually difficult for me and thus puts me in real danger of falling and ending up potentially seriously injured.
That guy wasn't even being a jerk. He didn't sound angry or confrontational at all. Someone just jumped on the opportunity to get the next "viral video". That's all.
Exactly. I walk because I'm strong and able to do so and it makes me more confident of getting to the train in time. They talk about increasing throughput by 30% but do we really want these things to be running at 100% capacity? I'd hate to have to pack in like a sardine and not have enough space to walk. Standing on one side seems to be a perfectly reasonable compromise.
The psychological reason it is difficult to get people to stand on both sides of the escalator is that when the station is not busy, it's obvious that it is not saving anyone time to stand on the escalator, so people walk. At some point during the day it makes sense to change the rule so people just stand on the escalator, but people are already walking down one side and it isn't obvious that they are wrong.
> As reported by Japan Times, a study by the Japan Elevator Association in Tokyo found that of the 1,475 escalator accidents in the city between 2013 and 2014, more than 880 were a result of people riding improperly (that includes walking or running on an escalator).
This is written poorly. Just because someone was walking does not mean it caused the accident. At the very least it could be only partially contributory. Also, how many percent of the time are people walking on the escalator there?
You could also flip the logic on its head in circumstances in which someone was not walking and was bumped from behind. Had they been walking, they likely would not have been bumped from behind.
> "At some point during the day it makes sense to change the rule so people just stand on the escalator, but people are already walking down one side and it isn't obvious that they are wrong."
They aren't wrong. The people who intend on standing and therefore avoid the left side are wrong. Standers should use both sides. Walkers should be free to walk on either side when the opportunity permits. This scheme gives you an identical throughput to everybody standing, and a greater mean speed.
If people cared about throughout, no one would be standing. People are lazy except when in a hurry, and giving both groups the chance to commute the escalator how they want is what you should care about.
One other thought: In times of congestion, it’s not uncommon for tube stations to limit access to prevent overcrowding. I always hate entering a very busy station (or shopping mall) where both sides of the escalator are completely full, as there’s a big risk of injury when there’s no space at the escalator exit, and you have a pile of people being rammed into one spot.
It’s not an issue specific to stand-only escalators, just exacerbated by it. With half the escalator reserved for walking, this issue should happen less.
Incidentally in these same overcrowded stations it’s not uncommon for the escalator to be turned off intentionally to prevent such problems. So both sides have to walk!
Mh, I comprehend if they say "escalators dislike asymmetrical charges" but not the argument of going all at same speed. Sometimes we can be in hurry while others can be absolutely calm.
We are HUMANS, we are all similar and all different, we can't be considered as "packet on a network". These kind of homogenization it typical of modern society, mostly derived from Ford model and it's harmful and dangerous for our freedom and our social evolution.
BTW not anybody walk to going from A to B in a certain amount of time, we do not exists as a work-machine, we exists as human being that work to live, not the contrary.
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[ 2.6 ms ] story [ 136 ms ] threadIn London this is less true, but I admit to still walking up.
Here's a heuristic you should try applying: under some reasonable assumptions, getting to the platform X seconds earlier should shave X seconds off your commute in expectation and not affect the variance. (Those assumptions are basically "you're not trying to catch a particular train.")
Of course, you may have a nonlinear objective function in terms of time/delay, or you may be optimising for regret instead of arrival time, and in those cases the analysis may turn out differently.
Naturally, everyone's worked out that heuristic while waiting for the college bus. It's the problem that's changed.
I feel like it would hold less true for a 3m or 4m escalator that most people would feel comfortable walking up.
Not quite sure what a ‘theoretical study’ means in this context though. They link to their previous reporting on the study, but the link provided there to the actual study is dead.
I only put in the disclaimer about height because while it's mentioned with the theoretical study, it's not mentioned with one of the only actual experiments, and Holborn is a 23m long escalator, which you wouldn't know unless you use Holborn. These findings wouldn't be very helpful in New York, for example, where most stations are so close to the surface that you're only traveling one or two stories.
Fun fact for readers in the Washington DC area... At 230ft (70m), the DC Metro Wheaton station escalator is thd longest escalator in the western hemisphere! [1]
[1] https://ggwash.org/view/34875/what-are-the-10-longest-metro-...
People who are really rushing can always take the stairs.
I’ve caught a long distance train with less than a minute to spare, which had I missed it, would have delayed my journey by an hour before the next train. It shouldn’t have been that close, I left with plenty of time to get to the main railway station via the Underground, but sometimes multiple subway lines have issues and you get cascading failures that leave you with no other choice but to run up escalators or miss your transport (especially if it avoids having to buy another train/plane ticket)
I'm sensing zero-risk bias, typical for modern western societies. For me, there is absolutely no reason to stand on the escalator, unless handicapped of course.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Still not sure it should be encouraged, though.
Being tired is a fair point, but that's why there was left/right side compromise.
The number of people who are otherwise healthy but refuse to walk up stairs just shocks me. I’ve never felt like walking up an escalator carried any significant risk for the able bodied...
I don’t know how to explain it except that people are shockingly lazy and just overall have really screwed up risk assessment
I've got long enough legs to comfortably ascend two stairs at once and I prefer the exercise as well as the speed of ascent and descent.
As far as I'm aware, though, escalators are not a leading cause of death.
What the world really needs is more stairs for those who are able, and more lifts for those who have difficulties with stairs. Or maybe multi-lane, variable speed walking escalators, but I guess those are sci-fi...
How so? I don't see how an escalator could possibly be slower than everybody standing (discounting the possibility of somebody actually walking backwards.)
> "Or maybe multi-lane, variable speed walking escalators, but I guess those are sci-fi... "
I've badly wanted to try that ever since I read Caves of Steel. It sounds terrifying but exhilarating.
To be clear, I'm not talking about some sort of "walk on the left" convention, which plainly reduces throughput. I'm talking about the "walk if you want to no matter what side you're on" convention, which seems to be far more universal.
Furthermore since stepping onto an escalator necessarily involves walking up to that escalator, if the minimum distance between people walking were causing a throughput limitation that would manifest whether or not people on the escalator were walking.
You shouldn't carry bulky luggage in an escalators anyways.
If the escalator is packed the people on it can’t start walking because there is no space. And escalators are often packed in stations, for instance when a train arrives and a thousand passengers get off the train at the same time.
you could also have fewer injuries hy getting everyone (except those who can't) to walk, which would also result in a lower overall difference in attentiveness.
we don't need more silly regulations like this when things like distracted driving and air pollution are real problems that kill thousands of people.
It baffles me how many people automatically stop being active just because there's an escalator. Surely a better social norm is to encourage even mild activity and exercise?
Of course if you're exhausted or have luggage or are in tall heels or are holding a baby then by all means stand -- but stand to the side. Most of the time that won't be the case, so everyone walking will be a better overall optimization, and especially the fact that there are usually elevators in modern buildings as well that are better accomodating for luggage and babies and the disabled as well.
Each person gets to the top slightly slower individually, but more people get though in total.
Same thing has been happening in London. They've been trying to convince people to stand on both sides in some stations.
After RTFA, I still don't see what the explanation is supposed to be for the claimed increase in throughput.
Just spend some time in Belgium. We are unable to form orderly queues. Elevators are like moving grapes of humans, lines in fast food are flocks of people going back and forth between the end of the line, the cash register and the spot for food delivery and people are piling on top of each other at bus stops.
It drives me mad.
This experience made me surprised that Tokyo would need to implement such a system top-down; I figured their crowds would be large enough that it was happening anyway.
Looks like "better" queueing behavior may be responsible for the failure.
I now take it upon myself to be the first person” sometimes. If I see a long line forming to stand, and no one is walking at all, I will stand in the “walking” lane.
After that I see a lot of people with relief on their faces when they stand behind me.
I guess it also helps that I’m bald, Asian guy with a long beard. so maybe they think I’m a bum. Otherwise there were times I’ve seen people admonish the standers.
Few general remarks:
1. If people have lots of luggage or aren't comfortable using the escalator, they can take the elevator (and they do).
2. Saying that standing would prevent accidents is like saying banning cars would prevent accidents - not a particularly helpful observation. Humans are only willing to minimize risk up to a point.
3. The more complicated argument in the article is that standing would increase capacity. I don't know - I avoid rush hour, but the escalators seem empty enough so that I can walk up/down unobstructed. It's hard for me to see how I'm negatively affecting capacity. In cases where the escalator is packed, I'll stand rather than being pushy, but that never happens during the week.
I really dislike these types of articles that try to use stats for reasoning. They claim that between 2013 and 2014, so over 365 days, there were 1475 total accidents, 880 from being "improper"? What qualifies as an accident? And what's improper? If there are that many issues? Why not only make stairs? (They have those too). Another "study" is listed saying that in London, "reduced congestion by 30 percent" whatever that means. And another reasoning I disagree wit (one that can't be proven let's be honest) is that this will stop people from being jerks on the escalators. I'm pretty sure that this would annoy more people if they're unable to get by.
The only possibly reasoning is that for super long escalators, very few people walk, so half the capacity is being used.
I'll give JR East credit. If they think double side standing should be the way to go, trying it out for a month and seeing how it goes is a great way of handling it, instead of forcing it from now on and having too much confidence in success as is mostly the case in these social change campaigns.
One more thing, why is the url's slug pretty much completely different? What was the article about before? And by the way, in Tokyo, walkers go up the right side, standers are on the left. You can even see that in the picture at the top of the page. Pretty sure if you're writing about escalators in Tokyo you should mention that.
This is napkin math, but: Wikipedia says Japan's train ridership was 7.58 billion in 2014. Compared to 880 injuries, that's roughly a 1 in 1 million chance.
And do we force people to allow machines to do all the walking?
How about it's a bad idea to force people to be lazy in their daily routine if they don't want to?
Standing on the right, walking on the left is a form of "rush discrimination".
If you just look at throughput, you're measuring the wrong thing. Try to measure how people feel! The fact Londoners would flip experimenters the bird when asked to stand on the left, should tell you what you need to know.
Of course, my perspective crucially ignores one category: people in a rush, who can't climb an escalator. They are disadvantaged by this. How many of them there are, I don't know, so perhaps I'm being incredibly tone-deaf.
"It's a domestic flight? You should still leave early, you're not allowed to walk up the escalators anymore!"
i don't think we are there yet, because there is still some space, albeit with a bit of jostling, to move around in holborn. the platforms are not at full-capacity and commuters can still alight.
Then there’s the added bonus that it may finally stop people from being jerks on the escalator—like the London commuter captured in a viral video this year telling a blind man with a guide dog to let go of the handrail so he can pass him.
Someone with a guide dog -- a clear signal of special need -- can have their need for reasonable accommodation utterly ignored. It can be worse for the many people who are less obviously impaired who lack some clear public signal.
I'm seriously handicapped. Most people cannot tell that by looking at me. I gave up my car more than a decade ago and I mostly get around by walking, so a lot of people see me as unusually able-bodied because I walk everywhere.
But I have serious trouble navigating certain situations, such as stairs. Escalators are hard for me because they are moving and I'm visually impaired and I walk with a permanent limp and I have joint issues and yadda. It's stressful for me to deal with the transition to step onto the escalator and stressful for me to deal with the transition to step off the escalator and I generally cannot cope with walking on the escalator. I stand on it.
There are lots of different types of handicaps in the world. Some people have social impairments. This often gets labeled Autism Spectrum Disorder.
I have two sons who needed a lot of social stuff explained when they were little. They didn't readily get it.
I think there is a larger learning curve for social things than is generally appreciated. I am a big believer that decent adults are made, not born.
Regardless, people like me have the additional issue that people who would never do something like that to a blind person will still do it to me, not realizing that I'm in genuine danger of being seriously hurt because of their behavior because I sometimes really struggle with seemingly small things.
Getting on and off a bus is also kind of a nerve-wracking production for me. Most other people just step on or off. I cannot do that. I routinely cling to whatever handholds are available. Yet I don't use a cane, walker or other device that would signal to other people that I'm seriously impaired. So sometimes people seem to just find me annoying, presumably not realizing this is actually difficult for me and thus puts me in real danger of falling and ending up potentially seriously injured.
> As reported by Japan Times, a study by the Japan Elevator Association in Tokyo found that of the 1,475 escalator accidents in the city between 2013 and 2014, more than 880 were a result of people riding improperly (that includes walking or running on an escalator).
This is written poorly. Just because someone was walking does not mean it caused the accident. At the very least it could be only partially contributory. Also, how many percent of the time are people walking on the escalator there?
You could also flip the logic on its head in circumstances in which someone was not walking and was bumped from behind. Had they been walking, they likely would not have been bumped from behind.
They aren't wrong. The people who intend on standing and therefore avoid the left side are wrong. Standers should use both sides. Walkers should be free to walk on either side when the opportunity permits. This scheme gives you an identical throughput to everybody standing, and a greater mean speed.
It’s not an issue specific to stand-only escalators, just exacerbated by it. With half the escalator reserved for walking, this issue should happen less.
Incidentally in these same overcrowded stations it’s not uncommon for the escalator to be turned off intentionally to prevent such problems. So both sides have to walk!
We are HUMANS, we are all similar and all different, we can't be considered as "packet on a network". These kind of homogenization it typical of modern society, mostly derived from Ford model and it's harmful and dangerous for our freedom and our social evolution.
BTW not anybody walk to going from A to B in a certain amount of time, we do not exists as a work-machine, we exists as human being that work to live, not the contrary.