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In response to
"Why don't Americans walk more? -- (link)"
by
znufrii
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Interesting observations on escalators and escalator-walking in Part 2...
Posted by
znufrii
Apr 18 '12, 09:03
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When do people choose to take the escalator versus the stairs? How crowded does the former have to be before the latter is chosen? Standing by a bank of short escalators and stairs exiting to Eighth Avenue, we watch a small queue form at the �up� escalator (not surprisingly, people are more likely to take stairs going down than up). What Zupan found, then as now, is that people�s desire to avoid exertion is relatively high. �To take the most extreme example, when the stairs in the subway are five flights, what�s the percentage of people who will take them?� The answer: About four percent. The people Zupan calls the �health addicts.� He adds: �I was one of them.� Contrary to what you might expect, escalators do not actually improve efficiency. �If you count the per square foot width on an escalator, plus the acceptance rate��i.e., how willing people are to stand near each other��it�s about the same as stairs.� And when people walk on an escalator, the capacity is, a bit counterintuitively, reduced, because of the subsequent shuffling�and accidents. (Escalator walking was actually banned in Japan.) What escalators do, simply, is reduce the amount of energy people have to exert (and during rush hours, an escalator is often the only way people are assured of being able to go against the cresting tide of directional flow).
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