ABSTRACT

Once a building is occupied, its population will move around the building about their normal business randomly (in the statistical sense). A small percentage of occupants will leave the building and be replaced by new arrivals. A typical time to observe such an interfloor traffic pattern is during the mid-morning or the mid-afternoon periods. The traffic demand is frequently balanced and there is no dominant pattern of arrival at any floor or any dominant destination floor. Passengers using the lift system at this time eventually return to their original departure floor, hence the use of the term balanced interfloor traffic. This is illustrated in Figure 4.9, which shows a typical spatial plot of lift movements around a building during an interfloor traffic period. The plot can be viewed upside down, or back to front, and still displays a random pattern! At other times there may be some unbalanced interfloor movements for example to/from refreshment floors, hotel lobbies, etc. These traffic flows are not as dominant as those found during pure uppeak or down peak traffic, and not as random as those found during balanced interfloor traffic. A more significant traffic pattern occurs at mid day and this will be considered in Chapter 15.