In 2006, New Barrier-free Act was enacted. It is combination of Transportation Accessibility Improvement Law and so-called Heart-Building Act, but idea of Universal Design is included. Accessibility of public transport has been highly improved from enactment of TAIL. This paper introduces recent advancement and topics on accessible transport.

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An elevator rope for a high-rise building is excited forcibly by the displacement of the building caused by wind forces and earthquakes. In this paper, experiments of free vibration and forced vibration of rope are presented for obtaining the natural frequency and the damping coefficient of rope. And experiments of forced vibration of rope whose length varies with time due to the up-and-down movement of the cage are presented. Finite difference analyses of rope vibration are also performed by considering the time-varying length of the rope; based on the assumption that the movement velocity is constant. The calculated results of the finite difference analyses are in fairly good agreement with that of the experimental results.

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The elevator rope increases its lateral vibration during a long-period ground motion in a certain critical condition. We need to evaluate such rope lateral behavior during an earthquake and apply a proper vibration suppression method, which can protect the elevator devices from any damages. In this paper. the rope lateral motion caused by a long-period ground motion is clarified in several simulated seismic waves and building conditions. We evaluate the methods to suppress the rope lateral motion caused by the resonance with the building sway motion. Then we propose a new emergency operation system for a long-period ground motion.

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When a building shakes by a long period seismic events or a strong wind, there is a problem that ropes of an elevator sways widely in a shaft. We developed the new method to predict a rope sway in these in real time. This new method has two or more single degree of freedom (SDOF) system models expressing ropes, and can in real time calculate a rope sway with the displacement response spectrum algorithm each sampling time. Therefore, because the method can predict a rope sway, an elevator is able to shift to the Operation for emergency. After that, elevators can return to the Ordinary operation early. In this paper, we explain the principle of the method. And we verify the accuracy of the prediction of a rope sway with this method by comparing it with a multi degree of freedom (MDOF) system model. Finally, one sample that applies the method to an elevator system is shown.

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A new earthquake recovery system for the elevator has been developed and started the service. This system automatically diagnoses the halted elevator by the earthquake emergency operation, and then it tries to recover the operation normally if it doesn't detect any malfunctions. When a big earthquake occurs, many elevators have to stop their services until maintenance worker's check. It causes a long waiting time for the normal operation. The developed system can check the elevator condition by itself within about 30 minutes. Therefore it improves the user's availability by the quick recovery after the occurrence of earthquake.

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The vibration of steps in passenger-conveyers that use a conveyer chain has increased as a result of their compact size and high speed. So we have proposed the vibration-suppressing guide rail, which can easily eliminate the vibration as we mentioned in the previous report, except shock vibration. This report describes that we have established the method to verify the effect of the shock vibration with a mechanical simulation program Working Model^<TM>-2D.

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In recent years, the enhancement of safety in elevators and escalators has strongly required. We developed a warning device for an escalator using the optical distance sensor. This device achieves warning to the passengers approaching the inlet guards or hanging over the handrails. At the inlet guard, two distance sensors are placed on both sides of the inlet guard to detect the objects approaching from right side or left side of the handrail. The detection area of the sensor is set within the top of the handrail not to detect the passengers standing outside of the handrails. At the delta guard, the detection beam is emitted to the opposite direction of the escalator movement to detect the passengers moving upward with hanging over the handrail.

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The final goal of this study is to apply the mechanism of inversion plastic deformation of an aluminum tube to the buffer for a high-speed elevator instead of oil-buffer. In this paper, first, an annealed aluminum tube compressed on a conical die is shown to cause stable inversion plastic deformation, which has an ideal load-displacement curve as a shock absorber for various kinds of elevators. Secondly, it is described that the boundary between inversion and progressive buckling depends on the ratio of the thickness to the diameter of the tube. Finally, the buffer characteristics of this type shock absorber are confirmed to be useful for elevator absorbers from the dynamic test.

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The effect of using elevators and stairs is examined for evacuation of tall buildings. The elevator operating method that gives the shortest evacuation time is studied in detail and the following method is found as a good solution. Buildings are divided into (zone number+1) sections. During the evacuation, people in the lowest section use only stairs to get to the evacuation floor (1F) and people in the other sections use stairs to get to the rescue floors where the shuttle elevators depart to the evacuation floor. The rescue floors that give the shortest evacuation time change with the population of the building.

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It is essential for everyone to make use of elevators easily and safely because they are publicly used. So elevator manufacturers have adopted a lot of specifications of universal design. Some typical examples of universal design are as follows. "10mm Distance between hall sill and car sill", "Multi-beam door sensor", "Lager buttons and indicator", "Button with Raised letters", "Button frame recognized easily", "Open button and close button combined with Hiragana", "Enlargement of angle of return panel", "Brighter lighting", "Braille", "Operating panel for disability" These specs provide the people more comfortable ride and easier operations of the elevators. However the importance to the safety for doors rose recently more than the past, and we studied it aiming at a further improvement. And the manufacturers studied the specification to improve wheelchair user's convenience and blind people's convenience. This time we studied to improve convenience of the people with hearing disabilities. This article introduces the approach for on "Safety improvement of doors" and "Convenience improvement of the people with hearing disabilities"

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Multi-car elevator system with large handling capacity can reduce elevator space in the large-scale building. We focused on circulating multi-car elevator which is effective for local transportation. The circulating multi-car elevator consists of two elevator shafts, and plural cages move circularly inside them. In this paper, we propose practical specification and feasible mechanism with looped-wire ropes. In order to affirm mechanical performance, 1/10 scale prototype is developed. We conclude that driving unit with multiple pulley realizes individual operation of plural cages. And stable motion at the turnaround points is also verified.

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