“The man whose ancestors trekked West beside a covered wagon doesn’t want to haul his luggage from an airport terminal to an airliner 300 feet away.” – Otis Elevator advertisement
Ya, I get that. My hips & knees are no longer what they used to be either. While I have enjoyed discussing many different modes of transportation in the SOLEtter, one that I have not touched on yet is that of the humble pedestrian – us. Our inherent bipedalism can be improved upon using motive walkways and moving stairs. They have been around for nearly 150 years. Not only do they save effort while transporting ourselves, they assist with physical challenges and moving heavy loads; like schlepping our soiled laundry though airport concourses.
I’m only going to address standard issue human feet wearing non-wheeled/bladed/sprung (including Moon shoes or prosthetic ‘blades’) and non-motorized footwear while concentrating solely (triple pun intended) on the surfaces upon which we tread. Dress shoes, bare feet, sneakers, combat boots, or high heels may be referred to at the reader’s discretion. I’m not gonna judge who’s wearing which type of footwear!
“No matter what you choose to call it, a moving walkway is a simple variation of the conveyor belt,” – Steve Showers, corporate archivist, Otis Elevator Company.
Beginning with the definition […as always]: A moving walkway (sidewalk, Travelator, Walkalator, Astroways, etc.) is a slow-moving conveyor mechanism that transports people across horizontal or inclined planes up to 15 deg. over short to medium distances.
The first moving walkway patent was granted to New Jersey inventor/wine merchant Alfred Speer in 1871. He hoped it would revolutionize pedestrian travel in New York City. His “moving pavement” idea was to transport pedestrians along a series of three parallel belts, each one successively faster than the next. His design included seats for passengers to rest. By 1874, he added a few enclosed “parlor cars” every 100 feet that included drawing rooms for ladies and smoking cars for men. [Yes I know… Some men probably wanted drawing rooms too.] Moving walkways were featured in the HG Wells “A Story of the Days To Come” (1897), and in Fritz Lang’s “Metropolis” film (1927).
The first public moving sidewalk was installed in Chicago’s World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893. Walkers could either ride at 2mph or step up to a platform with seats moving at 4mph. It was mentioned in The Times Herald newspaper (26 June 1893) that a person “aid walking” could go faster yet; up to 6mph. Looking like a giant dog-bone, it ran in a loop down the length of the main lakefront pier. It was covered with a shed-like roof to protect riders from the elements while the natural lake breeze kept riders cool. It was nearly 3,500 feet long. Iron posts and instructional signs assisted getting on and off the walkway. At full capacity, the walkway held 3,000 people and could ferry 31,680 passengers per hour. A person could ride around all day for just a nickel.
Then there was the one at the 1900 Paris Exposition Universelle that has never been eclipsed in size. The ‘Trottoir Roulants‘ was 2.25 miles long and circumnavigated the entire fair thirty feet above ground. An electric passenger railway ran under it in the opposite direction. Users were treated to great views of the exposition as well as the city of Paris. This walkway consisted of three stair stepped elevated platforms beginning with a stationary sidewalk, then a second narrow one moving at 2.5mph was used to transition passengers to the third grande vitesse, cruising along at exactly twice that speed (5mph). This allowed practiced passengers to easily transition on and off the fastest walkway whenever and where ever they wanted to. It consisted of individual articulated platforms allowing it to negotiate curves. Seats were included for those who wanted to ride. It is was claimed that a woman gave birth on one. In a Thomas Edison movie [Ed: See videos below] you can see well placed knobbed poles that assisted ingress & egress. I wonder if those long skirts ever got caught (pinching hazard, splinters, etc.). The moving walkway completed the trip in 26 minutes and could accommodate close to 60,000 (!) people at a time.
The first commercial moving walkway in the US was installed in the Hudson & Manhattan Railroad station at the Pavonia Terminal, NJ. Built by Goodyear, it was 277 feet long and moved up a 10 percent grade at 1.5mph. The first moving walkway in an airport was installed in 1958 at Love Field in Dallas, Texas. Two years later, it caused the first moving walkway fatality. And there is one on the Star Princess Cruise ship. If you count exercise treadmills even though they don’t get you anywhere, you can add hundreds of miles in five foot increments to the total amount of walkways worldwide. Those of us with bifocals and progressive lenses and have a hard enough time seeing our feet on stairs and are especially vulnerable to injuries getting on/off moving sidewalks & escalators. Children often use these walkways as an amusement park ride by climbing onto the rubber handrail or by trying to run in the opposite direction. They are curious as to where the conveyor goes at the end [Ed: So am I!] and can get their clothing caught up in the mechanisms leading to crushing and suffocation injuries. The two major types of moving sidewalks are:
Moving belt: mesh metal or rubber belt walking surfaces over metal rollers.
Pallet type: continuous series of flat metal plates joined to form a walkway – similar to escalators. They are often rubber coated for traction.
Some walkways have the ability to slow down at the approach & departure ends and speed up in the middle. Accelerating Moving Walkways (AMW) do this by expanding or retracting metal plates under the rider’s feet. Top speed in the middle is nearly 10mph. According to ThyssenKrupp who designed the Turbo Track high speed and high capacity moving walkway for the Toronto Pierson International airport: “They are an alternative for transit, not walking.” More on this in a bit.
Moving sidewalks may be used to ensure that museum exhibits are viewed in a certain sequence, provide a particular aesthetic effect, and to make sure crowds move through at a reliable pace. The Bicentennial Freedom Train exhibit in 1976 is a notable example. I remember being whisked through faster than I could take in the exhibits [I was more interested in the train itself]. Some facilities use them as moving ramps to help guests ascend grades. Some stores [e.g., Ikea] use them to assist shoppers and control shopping carts on inclines. Theme parks and ski resorts use moving sidewalks to assist passengers in boarding and disembarking rides and attractions. Walkways can move at the same speed as approaching seats and cars, allowing passengers to easily step on/off. They also herd the human herd into the ubiquitous gift shop.
Moving walkways may only minimally improve travel times and overall transport capacity. They often move at a slower speed than a natural walking pace, and even when people continue walking after they step on, they tend to slow down. “Overall, the speed of those on the belt is less than if the belt wasn’t there.” – Seth Young, director of the Center for Aviation Studies at Ohio State University. He discovered that the time gained is only about 11 seconds over a distance of 110 yards. Young conducted empirical observations at several airports for his doctoral dissertation. He found that normal walking speed is approximately 3 mph through an airport. “A typical moving walkway belt travels at about 1.4 mph, which is how fast a person would move if they just stood on the belt – or about half the pace of a normal walk speed at an airport.
People walking on a moving walkway stride at roughly 2.24 mph.” Young’s study shows that typical users of a moving walkway travel at 3.66 mph, gaining a minor speed increase over the 3 mph speed of not using the walkway at all. His research notes that there are downsides as well. Individuals who do not follow walkway etiquette – walk left, stand right – create traffic jams that slow everyone down. Manoj Srinivasan, a locomotion researcher at Princeton University created two mathematical models which showed that people slow down on walkways to reduce energy consumption. But it does allow weary passengers a chance to rest while still being transported to their airport gates.
Why are they called moving walkways? Because they are walkways that move and you are to walk “in the way”. Otherwise they would be called moving rideways. So the “stand right, walk left” rule applies. You don’t want to get in the way of a desperate passenger frantically trying to catch a connecting flight, do ya? Strollers and baggage carts do not belong on the walkway because they don’t fit into half the width. Watch your purses, backpacks, carry-ons, and computer bags while walking through so you don’t whack passengers as you pass by. And don’t stop in front of the exit unless you want everyone behind you playing ‘Bowling for Dollars’ by using you as the head pin.
The same goes with escalators. “Scala” is Latin for ‘ladder’ and Italian for ‘stairs’. In one of the office buildings I’ve occupied, walking up/down the escalators is standard practice during business hours. During all other times, they magically convert to stairs. But it takes hours longer to get to the top or bottom if you try to ‘ride’ them post conversion. [Ed: Reply if you’ve ever been stuck on one for over an hour.] I found one where the direction of travel (up or down) depends on which end the first person steps. They may be more economical to operate since they only run while someone is riding, and more efficient in moving the most number of people. On the other hand, you can never swim against the flow.
The first escalator was created as an amusement ride in 1859 and first implemented as such at Coney Island NY in 1892. Otis bought the patent, improved upon the design, and has been a major manufacturer ever since. They typically rise at an angle of about 30 degrees, speed us along at one or two feet per second, and can traverse vertical distances in excess of 60 feet. A single file escalator can move about 2,000 people an hour. And unlike batch process elevators, escalators are continuous flow movers. Many escalators parallel stairs, giving uses the option of using one or the other.
Don’t think of escalators as steps, but a series of stepped platforms. They do not conform to standard building codes as steps. Escalators are not designed to be walkable stairs and can be dangerous because of the changing dimensions. In 2016, there were 10,775 injuries from escalators and 15,237 elevator injuries. I didn’t find the number of walkway injuries, but we can assume it to be something similar. Most users choose to ride escalators. But standing on the right uses only half the space. Those few people who walk up them are using three times as must space. This is extremely inefficient. And with all of the weight on just one side, there is increased wear on the overall system leading to earlier failures. This video explains why escalators are meant to be ridden, and why we often don’t want to: https://www.wimp.com/weve-all-
Many facilities are starting to remove their moving walkways though. The cost of maintenance and the price of real estate for revenue producing shops and kiosks is just too great to pass up. However, Las Vegas has found them to be a great way for getting people into casinos from street level. The next time you are leaving those same casinos, note how many don’t have walkways exiting the building; or if they do, how many are out of service. Coincidence? Maybe. But even casinos are starting to remove them because the cost of maintenance exceeds the economic benefits derived from their use. – Logistics in Walking.
LINKS
Wikidedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
CBS Sunday Morning television show celebrates the escalator & moving walkway: https://www.youtube.com/watch?
Moving walkway history by the Smithsonian: https://www.smithsonianmag.
A short history of airport moving walkways: https://www.usatoday.com/
Norfolk airport is removing their people mover: https://pilotonline.com/news/
VIDEOS
Edison’s movie of the Paris walkway [1:32] https://memory.loc.gov/mbrs/
The best way to kill time using a moving walkway when you flight is delayed [2:05]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?
There is an inclined moving walkway in a Menards store in Brentwood, MO a suburb of St. Louis that takes shoppers to/from the upper level (it’s a really big box store). And yes, I tried it. I observed that most people choose to ride because its measured ten degree pitch makes walking up difficult. The wide metal surface is grooved to activate shopping cart brakes. Metal disks rolling on the floor beside the cart wheels fall into the grooves, locking each wheel independently. Total travel time is just under a minute. Video screens warn passengers when they approach the ends and demonstrate how to step off. I give it an A+ rating from both a logistics and customer perspective. But the carts fail because the wheel brakes are noisy and shake/shimmy. [1:02]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?