Same a-holes that always wait until the last minute to go anywhere then are in a rush to get there on time. In the process manage to stress everyone else out. Got a tip, leave 15 minutes early, you’ll be an easy pace and you’ll find the whole day will fall in sinc
@@pineyLt For some people you can't just leave 15 minutes early, because transit schedules are worse than that. Buses that run every 30 minutes or even every hour.
@@pineyLt if you are working and leave for home, and if you run you can get to next metro in time but if you stand you cant, which one would you prefer
Moscow metro has messages "please stand on both sides of the escalator" being played through speakers during peak hours, but uses standard "stand on the right walk on the left" approach when the traffic is not so heavy. Seems like the optimal solution to me.
Yeah, a problem with this as a universal rule is that when the escalator isn't at capacity, it could actually slow people down. I usually head into town for leisure and outside of commuter hours, so I rarely encounter queues at the escalators. If they were standing both sides, it would slow down people who are in a hurry. Having an announcement or signage at all times which can react to traffic seems like the way to go.
@@TheJamesM Thing is as well i find that when there is a queue people end up standing on both sides of the escalator anyway because there are just that many people.
When there is no queue of people stand in the middle for safety and occasionally look back for walkers to move temporarily out of the way except when you are close to the top so you don't trip.
I'm sorry, but even with the assumption that the main focus of escalators is capacity this video does not dig in the right spot. You're measuring flow, therefore you need to take flow into account(duh!), not space used, but how many people are getting out of each side by time. I'm not saying that capacity wouldn't be improved by all standing, I'm just saying that this video does not prove or disprove anything because it's not taking the right variables into account. By the same logic cars take a lot more space than a person, therefore roads would be faster if everybody walked since there's a lot more capacity in that situation.
Well escalators are for convenience. It's more convenient, and efficient if there's a higher capacity on the escalators because more people can get to where they want faster.
@@ThatOneDudeWhoPostsStuff thats the thing tho if you stand still you are quicker just taking the normal stairs so its not faster. also if you look at flow there are probably more people that get to the top if you take acount for all the people that walked up. they did take more space with the 3 steps per person but if they get up twice as fast its still the same flow.
@@ThatOneDudeWhoPostsStuff To use this selur's example of a road, just because there is more capacity on a road doesn't mean will get to your destination faster, because you are moving slower. The same applies to the escalators. The most important part is how many people wan't to walk on it compared to how many people want to stand, something that this video doesn't consider or even mention.... All of the models show at leasts thee times more people on the standing side rather than on walking side. In Germany during rush hours there are more people willing to walk than stand since everyone is in a hurry to get to work. The walking side is just as full and the distance is just one step between the "walkers"...
There is an assumption your are making here that capacity is more important than travel time. This is only true when loss of capacity from walker will cause the over all travel-time to be increased. Basically only when the station is jam packed with people otherwise walking is the more efficient way of going up. Yes there is also the maintenance issue but that becomes a question of how much extra maintenance uneven weight causes. Also the maintenance problem could also be solved by designating one escalator as walker only.
Eric Kimball I would also add that the footage included in several parts of the video (most notably at the end) disproves the whole premise. This video includes a lot of footage where the escalator is full - filled with standers on one side, and walkers on the other. That would seem to optimize both autonomy and capacity - as the walker side would transport even more people.
SMH you fail to understand. you're waiting in a queue to get on the escalator because people who want to walk need more space, so less people can get on, hence the queue. when there's no queue the problem isn't apparent, and the mere seconds saved don't amount to a hill of beans compared to hospital and paramedic costs just because you had to be there first.
it should read March 21, 2019 (how to use escalators correctly), March 22, 2019 to present (how to ride an escalator to social distance during the pandemic)
Just Use Like A Pool Slider But With Floor Button, So When A Man/Girl That Live. In Floor 15 For Example Want To Go To Floor 5, The Slider Gonna Reroute To Floor Five Tube, Not Efficient And Costly But How Fun If It's Actually Present IRL Like You See Your Kid Playing Floor Slider Intead Of Playground Slider, Best Way To Keep Your Children Inside Your Apartement, Upward Though, Who Cares About Upward Slider, They Can Use Stairs, In Wall Written: "THIS IS FOR YOUR OWN HEALTH PEOPLE"
Umm there are stairs already? I walk up the escalator because it’s faster than the stairs. Also I believe they’re built for walking and the person who invented escalators killed himself because people used it the wrong way
Not only that is needed to say the video is utterly naive. It misses the entire point people walk/run on them, TO GO EVEN FASTER. PS. It's not even unethical by being selfish, SOMEONE MAY HAVE AN EMERGENCY.
And at maximum capacity they tend to fill up and people are stuck standing on both sides anyway, which makes this entire video moot. Shitty maintenance or sub-standard equipment certainly isn't commuters' fault.
@@celluskh6009 Oh yeah equipment quality was also extremely misleading on the video. The fact a stairs may break is absolutely irrelevant to a public discussion (because simply they can be made robust to not even enter the discussion, and most of modern ones seem to be anyway).
not only that but weaving in and out of people as a walker would on an escalator, not at capacity would increase the risks of injuries and falls moving from handrail to handrail is bad
This doesn't address the rather common scenario where an escalator is not at full capacity (so there's no pileup at the bottom), but has enough load to make walking up impractical if people don't follow the "stand on the right" rule. In that scenario, everybody standing side by side obviously does not increase throughput, and in fact decreases it depending on how many people would otherwise be walking. As far as the wear and tear argument, that just sounds like an engineering flaw. This custom has existed for decades, so why are they still building escalators as if the load on each side is going to be equal?
People in Moscow have actually developed social norms to address that. The escalators are very long in Moscow, so you spend quite some time on it (and most people are not fit enough to walk the whole length). The subway there has therefore an additional rule: if there is a crowd at the bottom of the escalator (usually every time just after a train arrives) the first people who enter the escalators are walkers - on both sides. They walk up as high as they can and then some stop walking and stay on the right, some continue a bit higher if they can. People who prefer standing wait 10 seconds or so to enter.
If there is no pileup it doesn't matter and walking or standing wont increase numbers either way so learn basic math and problem solving skills before you speak in public. You did prove there is a pileup of idiots on the internet. Now should you walk or stand for the privilege to be the next idiot???????????
@@jpedrosc98 You can't just make the top of the step slanted so one side can be thicker to accommodate the greater wear though. That said it is not really an engineering problem so much as an operational one due to one simple fact namely that left and right are inherently relative thus the uneven wear can be balanced simply by alternately reversing the direction of the escalators each day. If you swap the up and down escalators around you also swap the left and right side from the riders perspective as the right side viewed from the top is the left side viewed from the bottom and visa versa. Throw in an LCD display at each end that switches between an arrow and a cross to quickly direct people to the correct escalator for where they want to go and problem solved at least for the wear and tear issue doesn't fix the wasted capacity problem but changing the behaviour of humans is hard changing the behaviour of a machine is a flick of a switch so makes no sense not to mitigate the problem human behaviour by operating the machine to minimise the damage caused by irrational behaviour by users.
"everybody standing side by side obviously does not increase throughput" That's not what that means. You'd have to do a bit of math to prove that. It's easier to just count the number of people who reach the top or bottom per hour, which is presumably what they did to reach the conclusion that standing on both sides is better.
Have separate escalators for walkers and standers. Walkers can get there faster, and standers can stand on both sides. Does my approach improve total capacity? Maybe not, but it does prevent uneven loading of the escalators.
Actually it does, especially in a bottleneck crowding situation. Because there's a now *obvious* divide, not only is there not gonna be any blockers, but the walkers get to step on the escalator more because they're not blocked by the standers. And because there's an extra lane and less volume on the stander escalator, more people will be able to go to the escalator. It also cuts the waiting time on for both. Although, it would be recommended for the walkers to have one person per n number of steps since if one half has a slower walker than the other, there's gonna be more weight/time, causing an inbalanced weight ditribution. That would be okay for normal conditions, but if it gets crowded, it *could* lead to the escalator breaking. Also, the walkers (even if in, and especially in, the same lane) should walk at a similar speed to avoid bumping, bottlenecking the escalator, etc.
@Cheddar - The taking up three steps for walkers vs 1 step for standers is very bad math. A) The walkers might take up 3 steps but they do so for a shorter duration than the people who are standing as they are traveling faster. B) No one stands on the step directly behind the person in front of them. They have backpacks or other objects that hang over the steps making it unlikely that they would use every step.
You aren't wrong but those factors don't add up enough to outweigh peoples being packed more closely. On average there is more throughput if no-one walks (see 4:45 of this video). The only fault I've seen in this video is the implied assumption that the escalator is the bottleneck.
@@Skooteh - - Your comment doesn't excuse their bad math, nor does it address my comment about people refusing to stand on every step. In the USA it is very unlikely that two strangers would stand next to each other. It violates social norms (which I know is part of the video), and it would result in more crime/injuries. The bottleneck happens, but only in places in which you have large group of arrivals: subway, train, & bus stations.
@@ymeynot0405 the 3 steps and 1 step assumption they make isn't exactly bad math, it's a visual aid they explained poorly. In reality the average amount of steps someone takes is going to be some weird, non-whole number that would only make this video more confusing. If you take up 2x as much space you need to go 2x as fast for the same throughput. Walkers, on average, don't do that. (again see 4:45 in the video). Different social norms will skew that 30% throughput number but I doubt it will be too much. "...and it would result in more crime/injuries." that's a dubious claim at best and also not really a part of this discussion.
@@Skooteh walkers will do that if there is enough of them and there isn't a really slow walker bogging everything down. The visual they provided does not apply when walkers themselves approach capacity. When things are truly busy walkers are as densely clustered as standers but pass through maybe twice as fast. The walkers would slightly benefit from those ppl standing instead of walking, but on average everyone would lose out. Injuries are relevant to the discussion, seeing as the video itself brings them up.
As a reference, maximum standing capacity escalator is when everyone is standing on both sides. The maximum standing capacity of "standing" walkers + standers is 4/6 given that walkers take up 3 steps. If the escalator has speed of 1 step/second, it also outputs 1 stander/second and 1/3 standing walkers/second. In order to match the standers, the walkers need to travel 3 steps/second. Make what you want of that.
To be fair, two world wars and a poorly handled globalization effort really threw a wrench in that plan. Add the fact that the only two global superpowers left standing after WW2 hated each other enough to start a Space Race out of spite, and useful science starts to become hard to come by. Oh, also politicians control what gets funded, and they're morons.
I doubt we would have the technology we have today if the two world wars never happened. I do not support beligerence in any way shape or form but the side effect in terms of technological growth due to competition is really astounding compared to longer times of peace or stagnation.
1909: in a hundred years we would have discovered everything there is to know about our universe! 2019: earth looks flat so it must be flat, space doesn't excist!
@@fredhenry101 the science doesn't work like "if we fund teleportation research enough, it will surely be invented soon". If it's not possible, than it's not possible.
I applaud the person that stand on the escalator while his train is moving in, and he keeps standing calm slowly riding the escalator... while it drives off and he just waits another 30 minutes for the next one to come..
I'm willing to bet that the person standing is doing so because in some cities during rush hour, the next train would arrive in as little as 30 seconds.
Right. As soon as they said they couldn’t even get Japan to follow the stand only rule a country that is notorious for rule following and public consideration, was when I laughed and said ya there’s no point to even try anymore.
@@benjaminnieva6016 The subway is every 3 minutes during rush hour.. and this almost as close as it technically gets. The train (a "real train") okay, I have every 15 minutes in rush hour... 30 minutes off peak. 60 minutes late in the evening/morning. none after midnight until 5 in the morning.
@@georgelionon9050 For a real train (S-Bahn or commuter train on national railroad trackage), these seem like fair operating times, though they could always be better.
@@cheery-hex you might live in a country where they dont really use it. Like I live in wales and most places i go people stand on both sides, and then there ar some stairs next to it
? The clip shows that it works when people actually do it. The fact that it’s so hard to convince people to actually do it doesn’t mean it doesn’t work.
@@uhlan30 There are three escalators shown at that part and none of them have people standing on both sides. Again, it's not working if people aren't doing it - and that's exactly what is being shown.
I think that would be contra-productive - there are a lot of eldery for whom the escalators are already a little too fast and they are sometime scared to get on them..
I think you've oversimplified the problem. Walking on the escalator is more beneficial to the individual and society if there is no bottle neck. The problem is transitioning to bottleneck scenario
Except many walk so slow that they're better off standing out of the way. I think you oversimplified the problem actually. It would be ideal if everyone walks fast but many people walks so slow that they leave so much space between them and the person in front of them. If only the people who walks really fast can dash up a stair meant just for athletic people.
the "taking up 3 steps vs 1" is totally not common here in Germany. Firstly, in standing you always leave a courtesy step inbetween you and the person in front. Also, they might have a backpack or bag of some sort, that will hang over on to the next step, so it's empty. Therefore, standing already takes 2 steps, not 1. And when it is that packed as the video showed repeatedly, many people choose to walk, and they will walk tightly, often also using only 2 steps, going directly into where the person walked before. So that 3 can be turned down to 1. Us Westerners don't like crowding, but walking the escalator gets us where we want fast. And I know, I know.. stairs! But some railways are built so you use the escalators. They HAVE stairs, but those are out of the way and a large deviation to go and take. Also, obivously, more steps. But just out of the way.. and I often have to rush from the subway to my further out train, and that one doesn't run every few minutes, it runs on the hour, if I'm lucky. So if I cut it close, I'm not going to want to stand behind others on the slow escalator, or go a long route for the stairs, or wait forever for the elevator, I'm walking up those escalators, because they are in the best spot, and the best possibility to still get my train.
This, plus walkers spend less time on the escalator, so even if they did take up more space to walk, they take up less space over time. This video was a weak effort cheddar!
Exactly my thought! Danke! Some stations don't even have stairs. The underground stations in Munich often times only have escalators, so a "standing-only rule" would cause more inconvenience than it would actually help.
I also don't understand how one side standing causing more failures wouldn't be solved by engineering the parts on the standing side of the elevator to accommodate the extra wear.
Can't Escalators be in pairs of 2, where one is specifically meant for standing, other for walking. Good design is not about changing people's behaviour, it should aid their behaviour by changing itself.
that would take up way too much space and already existing escalators, especially in subway tunnels etc. probably aren't able to make space for that, not to mention that would be way too expensive to install another pair of escalators and especially making the space for that extra pair in already existing escalators
I dont see this as a design problem, so much as a people-only-think-about-themselves problem. It's the same with traffic. Most traffic is really caused by people making poor, selfish, decisions, rather than driving in a way which encourages good flow.
@@weriscanexplode Lots of traffic problems are also caused by poor roadway design that misleads drivers into driving a certain way when they should drive differently. There's a video on how many suburban streets are highly unsafe because they're designed like highways instead of actual streets.
"An average of one person per stair"? Umm... NOOO! I can barely imagine 1 person on every other stair, let alone the opposite of that: 2 per stair (for both sides of your "average")!
We usually scold people for leaving steps empty around themselves. You gotta step up and fall in line, but then again that is another escalator-culture split.
Francesco Azzoni i personally have to leave one stair between me and strangers but i’ll share a stair or leave no gap if it’s with a friend or family member
If you'd actually listened to the video, you would habe seen the examples they've listed where this has been trialed and then failed due to the arsehole nation we are, not giving a donkey
Marie Müller If people are willing to walk why Male separate escalators for them, why not have them use the stairs( and no the 10 seconds they save by walking on the escalator is not enough reason)
This is silly logic. In my experience, when there is a traffic jam at the bottom or top of an escalator, people ride standing on both sides thereby maximizing capacity. The stand on one side rule only comes into play when there aren't that many people needing a ride...which is most of the time.
You havent encountered many assholes then. From my experience theres always the people trying to push their way up the escalator at peak times when people are mostly standing.
@Rick Lokers I don't understand. People in my entire life have always understood escalators with 'standing' and looked upon people that are walking as fools and stairs as 'walking'.
I went to Tokyo in 2019 and it was so much nicer to have escalator etiquette, never had to wait in line for an escalator even during rush hour at stations, especially since we could avoid the lines if one happened to build up by just walking up the escalator. It was so nice to have the option to walk up, everyone here just stands on the escalator so you have no choice to walk up.
I think the terms appropriate here are latency & throughput. Throughput is the amount of materials or items passing through a process / system. latency is the delay for a single item to move through a process / system. Having a higher capacity on escalators does not mean lower latency, as in, it doesn’t take any less time for a single person to ride the escalator. However, it does mean higher throughput. There is more parallelization, and over a long period of time, the average number of people passed through the subway will be greater than that of a lower throughput. And with people walking on escalators, unless everyone can walk perfectly synchronous, then walking comes at a cost of extra space on the escalator and therefore lower throughput.
@@erikhaight2152 You're creating a more complicated model for no real reason. Latency basically has no bearing here as it's a continuous flow of people not an instruction set that needs data to make decisions. The only thing that matters is flow rate or throughput (semantics) to prevent backups. To automatically say that walking ensures a lower throughput is flatly wrong without taking into account the speed of the escalator and the speed of the walkers. Walkers, in my experience using the subway daily, are much less likely to leave extra spaces open as standers who want personal space. Because of this as long as walkers can match or go faster than the escalator speed (if you've ever taken the stairs you generally easily beat most escalators by a fair margin) the throughput will generally be equal to higher than the standing side. But without accounting for the escalator speed and walking speed any conclusion is a half baked one, much less one that arbitrarily gives walkers numerous detrimental attributes for no reason.
If you make it faster moving then that would increase the risk for injury, especially when paired with someone in a rush. The increased speed would also increase wear and tear on the machine, having it break down more often and not be as economical for the owner. Designing it specially so it lasts longer would then just make the initial cost higher, making it less likely to be purchased. As a walker, I prefer taking the stairs if there is one. They're less crowded, and I dont lose much time if I'm walking anyway.
@@Catsincages - didn't say it can't be done. I'm saying it wouldn't be as viable with the increased costs and safety risks. The entity buying the escalator probably doesn't want to pay more for something that can cause more lawsuits. There's a lot that engineers can do, but dont because it's not economically feasible. The world is based around money. Doesnt matter if someone thinks something is cool, if there's no money in it, it's unlikely it'll ever get done.
Won't solve it, escalators often change direction when needed for optimal people flow or during maintenence of one of the lanes, then the redesign to accommodate higher torsion stresses must be applied on both sides again. Considerably raising costs again. Also you still have the issue of having a ~30% lower people flow compared to standing on both sides. At this point might be just cheaper to add another escalator. One solution might be narrower escalators.
@@name-fv4du he suggests that fat people already take the most part of the step, and usually are "standers", which mean they already block passage and hurt efficiency as it is. If when reducing the step size you consider 1 not-fat person you would hurt fat mobility/risk their health, if you consider 1 fat, it will be kept the same size.
Cheddar: Why is it so hard to get everybody to ride the escalator the right way? Me: Because when I see an escalator, I have to run up the side that goes down.
Finally, mimes making people feel uncomfortable, annoyed and singled out... for a purpose. Instead of making people feel uncomfortable, annoyed and singled out... for no reason.
@@LilliD3 You'd get there faster if everyone stood on both sides...you may save 10-15 seconds by walking up, but congestion caused from people queuing for seperate sides costs you 20 seconds before you can even get on the escalator. Of course, you aren't happy with everyone saving 10-15 seconds, you want to save another 10 seconds because you are a super important VIP....so now everyone gets where they need more slowly, including you....
@@pullt I have already commented why that doesn't work. People aren't equally mixed but more people that want to walk wait on the left side and the ones that want to stand wait more on the right. If I'm hurrying to another platform a few seconds are incredibly important. They can make a difference of 15 minutes on a trip.
Seems like an design problem, not a social engineering problem. You made previous videos about how footpaths influenced campus design and how poor street design causes accidents. What's so different about this? Why is the onus all of a sudden on the user and not the designer?
These numbers seem very flawed in my opinion. Ive lived in NYC, Copenhagen, and Paris, and I've witnessed more people walking up the escalator than standing. This is the case for almost every city, anytime of day. The "fact" that only 1/5 of people walk up the escalator seems very flawed and wrong. I would like to know exactly where, when, and how this study was done. And the proposed solution makes it seem more inefficient; people get to their locations slower. It's not about capacity, its about ease of travel and how quick people want to get to their location.
there's always some idiot standing on the walk side in Denmark though, it's always so nice when I'm in other countries and I can walk up the whole walk side.
"I have 2 minutes to catch my train on the other side of the station, but sure, I will just stand on this escalator" And don't say, just take the stairs... My Trainstation has either stairs or escalators, not both.
Exactly, either my train or bus is delayed, then I have to run, or my train or bus is perfectly on time and no need to rush. It depends on the trains and busses if I am a stander or walker.
Until I traveled, the fact that this was a thing at all was foreign to me. Keep in mind I did not grow up in the sticks, I was born and raised in Portland, OR. Portland is a real city. This stand on the right side thing does not exist here. The escalator moves on its own, just fucking wait it's not that hard.
The walkers take up more steps, yes, but their traveling speed is also faster; hence the transporting effectiveness of the walking side may not be worse, or even better than the standing side, depending on the walking speed.
This is the point that i didn't see mentioned. Suppose the video is correct in saying walkers require 3 steps space on average as opposed to 1. If they move down or up at 3 times the speed of the escalator itself, then there will be as many people passing on the walking side as the standing side. With slow moving escalators, this isn't impossible (despite the fact that most people still choose to stand). I prefer to walk, especially when climbing, as stair climbing is excellent exercise
also in rush hours walkers lane is just as packed, and people are pretty much walking (sometimes not even that fast) up each others asses one step away.
Well, intuitively the walkers should be faster and thus waste less of everybody's time right? But the problem is often not the escalator itself, but the build-up. Since both walkers and standers are in the same crowd and since only a half of space is used by standers it's a longer wait for everyone, especially on longer escalators. Hence the findings of the trial in Holborn station, London and the reason why during rush hour in Moscow passengers are asked to stand on both sides. www.gizmodo.co.uk/2017/03/the-results-are-in-the-holborn-escalator-trial-proves-that-it-is-better-to-stand-on-the-escalator-well-sometimes/
You may suggest separating walkers and standers before they reach the escalator and that could work well in some places, however many stations may not be adequately designed for this kind of separation, already it being quite difficult to place separators right in front of the middle of the escalators especially where there are many parallel ones. This also doesn't avoid the safety problems, including the uneven tear caused to the escalator parts.
In China, the escalators move so fast and are typically crowded enough that it just feels too dangerous to walk (runners take the much wider and less crowded stairs in the middle). the only times you could get the split is like at 3am on the metro...
This may be the best solution. Increase speed so that standing is actually faster than walking up normal stairs and then why bother walking? Also, they could be so fast that you could get injured if you started walking, to the point that since it's already going pretty fast, why bother?
In Hangzhou, escalators go at a normal pace, but nobody walks and just stand randomly. Same at the airport, even on slow speed horizontal walkways, people just assume they are being driven.
My guess it's true in terms of quantity. Commuters experience commute stress more often than when riots happen and when someone has to fight with a plane as commuting happens for a lifetime rather than a few years of a life.
I think it's more of a difference between prolonged stress vs acute stress, during your commute you could be stressed the entire commute vs a fighter pilot where your stress levels only peak while engaged in combat or when an equipment failure happens on your plane.
Just make one thin escalator for walkers, one for standers. In the bay on BART there are certain narrow escalators meant for one person at a time. Having the option to move down steps as they are also descending is so nice. You feel like you get down twice as fast. Sometimes you like standing if you’re in no rush.
4:20 A walker take 3 steps and a stander just 1. This is a total error of logic. Yes a walker takes more space. But doing so during a shorter period. So the capacity is actually the same. This error in logic is very common. Also people comparing the space of bikes to cars don´t understand that because the cars move much faster, while taking more space when they are on the road. The timexspace they use is actually not that much more of a bike
exactly! even if a walker is taking up more space , he is also going up that much faster which means exactly same number of people are being accomodated in an escalator that are walking and standing . this youtuber is just a dumbass.
A standee doesn't even take up 1 step, as he said, we like personal space. If you stand on the very step behind a stranger it's gonna be very discomforting for both of you, people usually leave 1, occasionally 2 steps in-between each other
@@Ethan-ik1nm completely irrelevant and useless point . thank you. it doesnt matter how many steps a person take if you cant tell by reading the comment and my reply above .
@@dreamkasper9988 not here for your lecture since I don't remember posting that comment in reply to you. Mind your business I read the comment, hence why I replied to it, didn't read your comment and certainly won't now since you feel entitled to tell me what I can and can't say when I wasn't even replying to your comment smh
If it a norm then they will design it to take one side better than the other. There are two type of people how take. One want to had a break and the other who need to get off as soon as possible.
The walkers are walking because they want to get along with their individual journey more quickly, and there's no reason for them to be thinking about it from the perspective of the good of society at large. Also, most of the times I've ever used an escalator it isn't so very busy that there's a queue of people waiting to get on, which is the only time the efficiency boost of all standing matters. In a huge amount of times (see all clips in the first 20 seconds of this video) the standing/walking combo works perfectly well. I think that maybe having a "standing only" rule at peak times in train stations during rush hour could work, but all other places and times the combo system is good. Also, if the standing on the right convention is so well established for so long, surely the manufacturers can take this into account and reinforce the right side so it will not eventually fail.
Leave 5 minutes earlier in the morning, that will bu you a ton more time than walking on an escalator. It's like how weaving in traffic does you literalyl no good, and just fucks it up for everyone else. And if "reinforcing the right side" is so easy, please do show me the technical specs for how to do it. And how to do it cost-effectively. ;)
@@kauske When my train is delayed, I only have a few minutes to walk from the train platform to the busses to get to my bus. No way I am going to stand on the escalator then. If I miss my bus then I have to wait for another half hour. Running to the bus saves about 2 minutes compared to walking. If the train is on time, I don't have to rush and I have enough time to stand on the escalator.
@MrHenkkkie Leave earlier, or get a boss that understands you are not responsible for transit delays. Trying to shove past people on en escalator isn't going to help you much.
@@kauske I try to only walk on the escalator when the situation permits. My point is not really about getting late, but about the half hour waiting time if I miss the bus. If the difference between being a walker or a stander is 30 minutes, why not walk on the escalator? Besides that, my fellow public transport users on the escalator will know from experience that I am walking/running to make it to the bus or train :)
How often are there enough people needing to use an escalator that it's even possible to use escalator's full capacity?...very infrequently. There is not a doubt in my mind that on all but the busiest of escalators, the method of standing on the right and walking on the left is the fastest way to go.
DaFightinFish this is exactly the issue. If there is always a long queue for the escalator then the station designers need to add access capacity. So this should rarely be a problem except in rare stations with very limited access or very deep tunnels.
Rush hour in any city with a transit system and escalators at the stations. This happens at least twice a day, five days a week and each one lasts longer than an actual hour (probably closer to 2 or 3 hours). So yeah, pretty frequently.
Your assumption is "more people prefer to stand" which is not always true. But where I live, both sides of the escalator is full and there is no empty space on the left. So it is faster if people walk.
Yeah, it's obviously different in different places, but where I'm from, both sides are full, and the walkers dont have near that much wasted space around them, they just get where they need to be faster.
At Holborn station it was found that 115 people moved per minute on the walking-standing escalator and 151 per minute at only standing escalators, so standing does increase capacity at longer escalators. Sadly, the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few
@@nutlover3609 Perhaps you may be lucky to live in a not very crowded place (well, me too), but during rush hour in Moscow or London for example it's simply impossible to stand on the walker's side and vice versa. Another issue is safety. They have valid concerns at 2:41 to 3:20. Escalator collapse is terrifying...
It's the difference between speed for one person, and speed for the group (overall capacity). Walking requires 2x the amount of space : the step you're on and at least one free step ahead. Therefore, in order to match the capacity of standing, walkers need to climb at least as fast as the escalator already does. Given the effort and length of the escalators, it is no wonder that on average walking reduces capacity. Add in the fact that most escalators are quite tight and walkers are often slowed by having to push large people, step around luggage (or over), etc... and you are pretty much guaranteed to always end up with reduced capacity.
If there's 2 escalators going the same direction, how about just labelling one as "standing only" and the other as walking. No imbalanced loads anymore.
I commute to Munich every day, and there this unwritten rule of "stand on the right, walk on the left" exists. When I met up with a few friends in Essen (city in North-Rhine Westphalia) I was almost shocked that people didn't follow this rule there. In my eyes, they were all blocking the escalators o.o
Right. This is a space-time problem. If the average person can walk 24 steps before their original step reaches the top, they take up 3 - 24 = negative 21 steps. Or looked at in reverse, The stander blocked 24 steps of progress on their side.
Conspirazy This is why I can’t stand this channel. Have you seen the flight seating one? There are obvious asterisks to his statements that never seem to get mentioned.
Yeah, but have you SEEN escalator accidents? They are nasty AH. It's VERY rare (WAY more likely to die on regular stairs, 1,600 vs. 28 yearly) but i don't piss off the escalator gods if i can avoid it. Jmo. They CAN separate in the middle. Each step is a separate piece.
Some colleagues and I have calculated this during a lunch conversation once. It does not so much depend on the number of steps you make, but on your walking speed relative to the escalator. If you can match the speed of the escalator (which is not always easy), you can allow for double the spacing between walkers and standers to equalize the efficiency of walking and standing. I'm a total walker, I get frustrated if I can't get past the people standing, especially if there are only very few people on it that block both sides. I would suggest a compromise: all-standing when there are a lot of people, but as long as there is no queue in front of the escalator, stand on one side.
The argument of standing people being the best solution for crowd fluidity is wrong. Suppose the escalator is running at 2km/h and measures 100m. If people are standing every 2 stairs, let's say every meter (d=1 m). You got a travelling time of 3 minutes so 100 people are carried during 3 minutes. Now if people are walking at 2 km/h (i think you can even go faster especially when the escalator is going down) let's say 3 stairs away from each other(d=1,5 m), you got only 66 people on the escalator but the travelling time is 1,5 minute only so 122 people are carried during 3 minutes. 122 is above 100, it's better if people walk.
Thank you, exactly my thinking. Also this "standing on one side is bad for the escalator" BS. If it is a known habit of the people, then f**ing design it accordingly...
@@minimalmo In Australia we don't have any of these horrific malfunctioning escalators, something goes wrong the motors shutdown and brakes bring the stairs to a smooth stop. additionally traditional escalators are slowly being phased out for what is referred to as "travelators" i'm not sure what the official term is, but there basically escalators with a flat surface so they be used with prams, wheelchairs and shopping trolleys. It's not just a design issue, its a safety standards issue. If an escalator get's to the point where its so old its dangerous to operate the company or agency which owns that escalator should be forced to fix the bloody thing, i find it disturbing that somebody thinks we need to social engineer the public instead of mandating companies actually fix their shit.
@@louiscypher4186 Very true, maintenance is one big issue. I am glad this also doesn´t happen here in Germany, at least to now… And the "travellator” sounds very interesting. But it might be difficult to implement in some places due to lack of space. I guess that they must operate at a lower angle, so nobody is involuntary rolling down that thing… xD
Your calculation assumes everyone using the escalator is able-bodied, which is simply not true. I take the escalator because walking up and down stairs is painful and tiring.
Your calculation stands or falls with the ratio between the native escalator speed and the additional walking speed. And you do not go anywhere near double the speed while walking on an escalator. Do some timing experiments sometime.
I’m from the west coast and I only learned about the split when I traveled east for the first time. From my experience, in Honolulu and Las Vegas, the cities where I’ve lived, there is no rule where to stand/walk. In malls, hotels, casinos, and other places with escalators people just stand on them on either side. I think it stems from two things: 1) Las Vegas and Honolulu are two major tourist destinations. Everyone has brought in different ways of riding the escalator so we all just use them however we feel like. 2) Las Vegas and Honolulu do not have subways. From my experience it seems like the split is present in places with subways or in areas people use them on their daily commute. That being said, Las Vegas and Honolulu are dominated by cars and all that rush can only really be seen on our roads. Escalators here are really only in leisurely areas like malls, hotels, and casinos; places where people aren’t in any rush.
I was thinking about a cultural problem. If you have go to Rome, there they don't really respect the "split" and it might be because there are a lot of tourist in Rome, but I was thinking why I wouldn't respect "the rule": if I'm walking with somebody else, I prefer standing next to them. I was thinking about this because the first time I went to London I was amazed at the silence in the overcrowded underground. I guess that not everybody wants or has company during their morning commute, but nobody? I just find that strage.
I mean, so far in the LA Metro (which there is some subways lines) runners just take the stairs, since escalators are being used by standers. I guess in that case, its because it just comes down to personal position on the matter and more open space. If there is an up and down escalator always filled and a very wide stairs in the middle, better to take the stairs.
Same in the midwest and its honestly kind of infuriating. I don't want to wait; I want to go through my day efficiently, doing menial tasks like shopping in the least amount of time. If people are standing on an escalator in the mall taking up the entire damn thing then they're slowing me down, and it's really rage inducing. There honestly need to be escalators that are separated for walkers and standers.
The analysis "more people riding the escalator means less buildup" is incomplete. There may be more space between commuters who walk the escalators, but it can still be the case that the rate that people get on or off the escalators remains the same. In that case, there is no additional efficiency for standing. Edit: It's anecdotal, but whenever I queue up for the escalator, the queue for people standing moves slower than the queue for people climbing.
That is what I also thought. It would actually be faster if we walked. Though there are a lot of people that Wants to stand rather than walk. This would block some people that wants to walk. I went to Korea my first time and oftenly I come to see empty on the left side but full on the right side. If there were the same amount of people that wants to go on both sides your statement would be good. But there are for some reason more people that wants to stand. I personally dont like to wait so I usually go to the walking section.
The issue is that it's slower to have a split than to have either everyone standing or everyone walking. Presumably, if everyone walked, it would be even faster than if everyone stood, but it's more dangerous to walk than to stand. What this means is that everyone walking is faster than everyone standing is faster than a split and everyone standing is safer than everyone walking is safer than a split, and cities are favoring safety slightly over speed.
@@jbird4478 Why do you think standing on an escalator is lazy? Infact, where I live it's kind of a taboo if you walked on a escalator, people even look at you like you're a total fool for walking on a escalator, there's stairs if you want to walk. I've actually never seen this phenomenon in my life tbh.
This etiquette takes into consideration the speed by which the individual wants to go and not the whole crowd. Not all people want to use the escalator at the same speed.
you mention the increased capacity, but not the increased flux. also, as shown by the boston/NY example, the ratio of stander to goers varies from place to place. more studies shoud be done on these points
I work in NYC , anytime the left aisle gets locked up because someone is standing, the backup gets WORSE. Standing can fit more people at once but over time walkers can get more people up there quicker.
According to the study mentioned in the video, when they forced people to stand instead of walking, throughput increased by 30%. This was hard for me to understand at first. If there is empty space in front of me on an escalator, you'll have a hard time convincing me that I'm slowing anything down by walking into that space. But the actual walking isn't what reduces escalator throughput. It's the social "rule" that you're not allowed to stand in the walking lane that reduces throughput. If you look at the videos, you see that most people won't get into the walking lane. They know that if they get in that lane and stand, they'll be berated. They wait for the standing lane. So a better analysis is to consider there to be two escalators: one where you MUST walk, and one where you MUST stand, and (roughly) two kinds of people trying to get on: Those who will only get on the walking lane, and those who will only get on the standing lane. The walking escalator is way faster, but most people won't get on it. You have, say, 80% of people who are only able to use 50% of the escalator.
@@yessopie If the problem is people waiting to stand why don't they just walk? In my experience half the time the walking side gets way more people up than the other side(because even though each person takes more space they take it up for way less time which means people get on and off at a faster rate even though there's more space between people on it at any given time), the problem is the instant someone stands on the left or people hesitate the whole system collapses and everyone gets there much slower. We don't need more efficient methods of taking the sub optimal route, we need to fix the flaws in the optimum route. Start issuing fines to people for blocking the way on/off/up/down the escalators and have people organise better into two queues approaching the escalator rather than crushing at the very entrance to it where you'll often have people crossing over the faster moving line to they can stand despite approaching from the left(which just causes chaos because these are almost always the people with trailing suitcases which block the entire path and trips people up).
@@yessopie Not really, what reduces the throughput is people not just walking, when there's a queue. If there's a queue to get on, don't stand on the left. Walk on the left. It's not that hard. You don't even have to walk all that fast.
This video is so fascinating for me because in my country (South Africa) there's always a staircase next to escalators. And it's considered good etiquette to stand on a an escalator. People who walk a ride because they could just take the stairs. Not to mention escalator always have a sign telling people not to walk.
Stations aren't always planned that way, unfortunately. There's a reason why escalator etiquette exists. People especially follow it in places that have many stations where normal stairs aren't there at all, or just not as direct of a route as the escalators are.
@@datvu6 I wake up soon enough, thank you very much. Its the damn train drivers that keep oversleeping. So I have to hurry to catch the connecting train.
@@frank4425 I can get up a day early and still end up being late, it is not always my own fault. Sometimes, only sometimes, I grant you that, it may be other peoples fault.
Sure, this deals with the issue of CAPACITY, but what about THROUGHPUT? Just implement two escalator pairs, and make each a dedicated walk/stand only during rushour.
I do like that idea, it is really expensive though. Most of the escalators that face this problem in a meaningful way are in metro/subway systems. That means that they're in deep and long underground caverns that need to face significant construction to be widened enough to accommodate more escalators. As someone who was born and raised in the DC metro system, it can barely stand up to the strain of shutting down a station for basic escalator maintenance, which is a far cry from sweeping, long term, renovations on most of the stations in the system. Don't get me wrong, I too am a walker, and I value my need to get to my destination in a timely fashion, especially when being a little slow could mean missing the train. I just don't think that extra escalators in viable.
In the US depending on the city and how old the infrastructure is. Not all underground transportation stations have an elevator and in malls at least the ones I’ve been too there is less elevators than escalators. They are usually way out of the way too so people who can walk but not too much would have issues. Like I can normally walk well but when I have a flare up I can’t climb stairs so that’s why escalators come in handy.
You assume that people will wait in line to stand on escalator no matter what. When in reality, if there is a long queue for standing, people tend to go to the "walking" side and just walk, especially on rush hours. And also, if that Holborn trial was more efficient, then the "natural" thing to do is keep it, not go back to split. Simple logic = it wasn't more efficient that's why they didn't keep it.
In my country standers don't wait in line either, they go to the walking side and _stand_ there, blocking everyone. So you see all the people who were in front of you reach fast the top of the escalator and disappear out of sight while you and a bunch of people are stuck behind one stander. We don't take 3 steps while walking either, we stick as close to each other as possible to make things go faster.
I have crutches so I usually have to stand because escalators are higher/more steep, so I do find myself queuing for the standing side (in Victoria Australia people do queue on one side for standing, and people filter in from the front for walking) But taking the stairs is always frustrating, because If I am using a solo crutch it's on my left, and it's need the right handrail, which means I need to stand on the right. And since Australia drives on the left we take stairs on the left, so I can't just walk up the same side of the stairs as everyone else, I need to walk on the right hand side, which is the side that people are trying to go in the opposite direction.
@Graff Fhe Yeah, exactly. If people are lining up to stand on the escalator, they must prefer waiting to walking. If they didn't want to wait, they would simply get on the escalator immediately and walk up. The problem is lazy people not wanting to walk, plain and simple. Young people should be WALKING up the escalator so elders and other people who can't easily climb stairs don't have to stand around waiting to get on. It's funny because the solution to this problem is mentioned in the video, they just don't see it. They could use the "mime" solution, just have someone sitting at the escalators encouraging fit people to walk up the escalator, gesturing towards elders who need to use the standing lane, etc.
@@phs125 You probably live in a place where the majority of people are overweight/obese. Those of us that live in a more fit society have a different experience.
My mom is an ICU nurse. One of her patients was an elderly woman who fell all the way down an escalator. She very nearly died, but instead survived after breaking many of her bones and having huge clumps of her skin scraped off. That story is enough to make me stand safely every time I’m on an escalator. It’s not worth the risk to earn a few more seconds from walking up.
Elderly people tend to have poor balance and coordination, as long as you look at the steps and hold the handrail I'm perfectly capable of walking up an escalator. The elderly should ideally use the lift if there is one anyway
@@grassytramtracks no common courtesy whatsoever. I guess it’s more important for you to rush to wherever you’re going than to use the escalator the way that’s safest for yourself and others riding it
It's funny how in Indonesia people are used to standing on both sides of the escalator, while the government actively tries to make escalator etiquette a thing by placing signs on newly built railway stations
We Indonesians are too lazy to walk 😂 "If there's a way to get up the stairs with no effort, then why not?", they think. But in train stations they are forced to walk on one side as it can be really crowded at the bottom. People who don't intend to walk will be forced to walk if they somehow get on the right side of the escalator.
U can't. the Etiquette will happen on it own when everyone actually have something to do with their time or they are really interest in something. But if it feel with lazy pig, even if it within the rule, pig will be a pig. unless they have something great to do with their time, the etiquette wont happne. if it was the other way round, people that in rush would keep ask people that stand to move a bit, the lazy pig will soon learn to stand on one side so that no one will ask them again and again. but if most of the people are lazy pig, the pig wont get annoy.
This is only true in a bottle neck scenario where the constraining variable is space and not individual speed. This is the scenario where tightly packing more people onto the escalator will increase throughput. This not true for a near empty escalator. If I am the only person on the elevator, throughput increases if I walk. Ideally (if humans were perfectly logical) we would adhere to traditional escalator etiquette when we detect a non bottle neck scenario, and use the double standing etiquette if we detect a bottle neck scenario. Heck if humans were perfectly logical, then during a non bottle neck scenario we would alter our current escalator etiquette to have standers be staggered, alternating right and left so that a walker could weave through them. This would solve the issue of over loading one side of the escalator.
Yeah, there are. They're always in the back somewhere. :) They hide them because while escalator or elevator accidents tend to be bad, regular stairs kill MANY MANY times more people a year: Elevator: 15/yearly Escalator: about 28 yearly Regular stairs: 1,600. Btw, broken escalators are NOT steps. They have been known to let go and dump people backwards all the way to the ground floor. Which would suck if it was a two or three story escalator :)
^ dude, literally 99% of those stair deaths are inside residences or buildings that don't have escalator options (parking garages, hotels, most work buildings, etc). But mostly in homes. If the average house had an escalator in it the statistics of deaths would be 100x if not more. This is a perfect example of how context is everything and you can't use a single stat to paint the whole picture.
5:50 - video shows just as many walkers as standers in the busier direction :D Also, if a walker is up twice as fast compared to standing, they can be spread out twice as far as the standers and the escalator would still have the same throughput. As dense as they walk in 5:50 the side with the walkers is actually transporting more people.
I dont really get the inefficiency. 1. As far as Im concerned the split is to allow people in a hurry to pass through, not to increase capacity. 2. Its not about how many people stand on the escalator at the same time, its about how many go through in a certain time frame. 3. Travel time stays the same, only the waiting time would decrease by 30% (if the flow increases by 30%, not capacity). Most of time the left side does not even have a line, and you travel twice the speed because you walk. Stand on both sides, and you force left to wait and travel twice as slow, to make people who voluntairily walk on the right a bit faster. Right doesnt really care much about being faster otherwise they would take left. Left obviously takes left because they do care
Yes, the authors usually forget that their goal and the respective efficiency is not universal. Their goal was to increase capacity but totally forgot about the benefit of the walkers
I have a few problems with this video, 1. It doesn't really mention the fact that walkers also leave the escalator more quickly. 2. When the escalator is really busy more people start walking 3. It is only talking about situations when the escalator is really full 4.doesnt account for the hurry some people might be in 5. Having to stand on a slow ass escalator when you are in a rush is going to increase stress levels
@@Tedd755 Yeah, escalator companies would just hate that, wouldn't they? /sarcasm In my experience... in a building with 10 escalators, one was ALWAYS under maintenance. And what do the standers do then? They're forced to walk anyway.
TeddtheTiger Also can’t handle as many people per second as escalators that can fit two people per stair or allow someone to have themselves and a piece of luggage or bag or child on the same stair.
I've been watching how people use escalators in London at rush hour.. Standers take up, on average, two steps. Not one. Walkers, similarly take up two spaces. They follow each other up perfectly in unison. It's beautiful. Maybe it's just when it's super super budy, and obviously this doesn't occur when you get towards the very end of the queue, but on the escalators I walk up during rush hour the walking definitely improves efficiency. So maybe efficiency actually depends on throughput. When the queue reaches a critical mass, more people are willing to walk up the escalator and thus you get a constant flow of people. Or maybe business people are more impatient. Who knows, but it's definitely not quite as simple as it is made to appear here.
Solution: Make an escalator that's reinforced on that side. Also, walkers take less time to cross the escalator, they don't occupy their 3 steps the whole time.
Exactly this video is full of faulty logic and the fact that escalator engineers are going as far as to try to change human behavior instead of.. idk doing their job and designing a better escalator is just laughable.
Which side do you reinforce? Because sometimes people stand on the left and walk on the right or stand on the right and walk on the left. Or they stand on both sides and block the passage so they can chat to their friends even though there's a step in front of their friend they could stand on.
The idea that walking on it causes failures is wrong. here is a list in order or the common failures of the device (note, none of these are caused by uneven loading because thats not how the mechanism works.) (1) Excessive elongation or failure of the traction chain. (2) Failure of the comb tooth foreign body protection device. (3) The handrail enters the mouth safety protection device failure. (4) Failure of the step sinking protection device. (5) Fault of drive chain broken chain protection device. (6) Fault of the armrest belt fault protection device.
As you said - the choice is between 30% more efficiency vs the autonomy of an individual. I don't know why would you think the people will agree to a common efficiency rising 30% if some of them will actually be late for work or feel uncomfortable because of that. Not to mention that a lot of subway station across the globe have not one but a few levels. In Istanbul where I currently live, there are metro stations with 4 levels or more - waiting on every level would increase the time it takes to go out would increase too much for me to use it as an effective mode of communication. Walking up saves me plenty of time.
Softy try not being such an idiot. The larger capacity means you save a lot of time in *waiting to get on the escalator*. Your overall time decreases a lot if everyone stops gumming up the works by walking.
@@JasperJanssen well for people who wants to stand, time isn't important for them so why is there a need to save time for them. If the standing side is all gummed up and you need to save time and there isn't a queue for the walking side then switch side and walk. People's choice ain't inflexible, if they see there is a queue for the standing side they would switch to the walking side which clears up the bottle neck at the entrance of the escalator faster.
Answering Machine have you not been listening or what? Lots of people can’t walk up escalators. Even those who could handle stairs can’t all do escalators. So no, just because they’re standing still doesn’t mean they’re not in a hurry. If the right side is gummed up, I will stand on the left. And not walk. Easy as pie. Lots of ableist claptrap in this here comment section.
While escalator capacity may increase due to people standing on both sides (positive from the perspective of an escalator engineer), it will make the journeys of all the walkers (read “non tourists”) longer.
A paper concluded that 75% of commuters prefer to stand. Not to mention that some older people may not be physically able to keep up with the quick flow. link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007%2F978-3-319-02447-9_32
It will make your journey whole *seconds* longer. Sorry if I don’t see how this is a problem. Especially not compared to asshole walkers pushing their way through and around standing people who are less able than them.
The benefit of being safer and faster for everyone outweigh the benefit of selfish walkers just wanting to save a few seconds. Human cannot see this because we are irrational being.
I thought the solution would be to have set of walk only and stand only escalators. Woulnd't improve the efficiency, but they should break less. Not walking may allow for more people to pass through overall, but that doesn't take into account the fact that each person has a different amount of time they are willing to spend travelling. Just look at fast lanes on roads.
As a walker, I'd rather just have stairs. The escalator is so slow, it really doesn't help much - you're at the top of the stairs by the time the escalator has moved a few steps.
@@texchu8331 Idk about escalators where you live, but here in Germany it's definitely significantly faster to walk up escalators than to take the normal stairs. Especially in cities like Munich where many stations are designed in a way that makes escalators the more direct route, while the stairs are located somewhere out of sight around or corner.
What if they designate 1 escalator for standers and another of walkers. This way, people will stand on both sides of the escalator without having walkers feeling frustrated from standers blocking their way.
This seems to be the only logical solution. As someone who commutes daily through NYC and is always in danger of missing a train, I'm just not gonna stop walking up the escalator.
@@sexygeek8996 they will only make that mistake 1 or 2 times before they get the idea. same thing happened when my city put in bike lanes. at first pedestrians would wander into them, but not long before they figured out much safer to stay out of the bike lanes!
Makes sense when it’s crowded but as a DC Metro user, the escalators are often not that crowded, so the standing only would definitely slow things down in many circumstances.
