Elevator Scheduling System (ESS)

Motivation

Each time after High Table Dinner or Hall Orientation, there will always be a long queue at 4/F because many participants need to go back to their rooms. Previously residents just get into the elevator in a queue one by one and the elevator will stop at many floors and waste a lot of time and energy. We want to find smarter scheduling methods and evaluate them by simulation.

Ideas

To effectively and efficiently break down the problem and offer solutions to reduce the queuing time for the elevators and save energy! --> reduce the number of stops as acceleration/deceleration take a lot of extra time.

Simulation

Assumptions --> 20 residents each floor, 24 floors in total (5/F~28/F). 3 elevators (lifts), each has a capacity of 12 people and 900kg. Piecewise linear approximation of elevator travel time.

Algorithm

Dividing the three elevators so that each one of them goes to no. of floors = total no. of floors/ no. of elevators = 24/3 = 8 alternatively.

So, 1st elevator = 5, 8, 11, 14, 17, 20, 23, 26.

2nd elevator = 6, 9, 12, 15, 18, 21, 24, 27.

3rd elevator = 7, 10, 13, 16, 19, 22, 25, 28.

Diving the three elevators into lower, middle and upper floors each going to total no. of 8 floors.

So, 1st elevator = 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12.

2nd elevator = 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20.

3rd elevator = 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28.

Results:

efficiency: 25% reduction in time taken for the queue of residents to reach their rooms. fairness: as all floors are divided equally and in equal number. so, you are expected to have to wait the same amount of time as your neighbor. feasibility: forming three queues instead of one queue.