Elevator Group Control for Reducing Total Running Distance

Abstract

Elevator group control systems decide which car gets allocated to a new hall call in some elevators, when a passenger in the elevator hall pushes the hall call button. The primary purpose of the group control system is to maximize the transport efficiency and reduce the waiting time of passengers. Recently, there has been increasing interest in energy-saving performance. Considerable efforts have been made toward reducing the number of available cars and limiting the use of lights and air conditioners in cars for saving energy; however, this leads to a decrease in the transport efficiency and comfort for passengers.
This paper presents an elevator group control method for reducing total running distance. This method is used to calculate the cost from the estimated running distance of a car when the car to be allocated to a new hall call is decided. The weight coefficient of the cost varies dynamically depending on the traffic. Simulation results show that the average waiting time in the conventional method and that in the present method are not significantly different. The improvements in the total running distance and power consumption are also demonstrated.