Hospital lift system simulator: A performance evaluator-predictor

Hospitals often experience lift congestion as a result of their heavy traffic, complex user types, and relatively slow-moving lifts (due to concerns over safety). Given the increasing number of current and new hospital building blocks that consist of many storeys, a visual simulation-based decision support system (DSS) is recommended. We present the modelling approach and development of a tool capable of being used for lift performance evaluation/prediction of existing/new hospital designs. These are also applicable to other general-purpose lift systems. A new data modelling approach, based on collected empirical traffic data, was developed to estimate the inter-floor passenger traffic. The DSS is flexible enough to allow the input of any zoning policy. The integrated zoning analysis offered here has not been found in existing lift simulators. This paper is the first to model a special feature designed to disable certain lift buttons in order to ensure fair use of the lift service. We carried out field studies of two existing hospitals, and we projected lift demand for a new hospital under construction. Performances at all three hospitals with different design structures under different operational control policies and lift features are given.