Not the up-and-down mechanics, though.
How do they “rest?” That is, if there are no calls, do they all retreat to the ground floor?
Do half (when you have more than one) go to the bottom, and half go to some mid-level?
I assume that you can customize elevator systems (the building I’m in now always has an elevator on the ground floor with doors open), but is there a generally accepted optimum configuration to maximize efficiency and minimize wait time?
There’s no standard. Modern elevators are programmable, and go into different modes depending on the time of day, day of the week, etc. This programming will be different for every building depending on how many elevators it has, how tall it is, and perhaps even situational things like the working hours of the companies renting the building and the occupancy rate of the various floors.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the newest elevators were even smart enough to dyamically change their behaviour based on trend analysis, and ‘learn’ to be optimally efficient. But that’s just a guess.
The elevator in MY building (c.1910) has doors that both must be manually shut. One can view the sides of the shaft as they crawl by. Return to the ground floor? I just wish ours worked most of the time!
Sweet Basil
I am NOT a hacker!
Some just sit where they last stopped until called again. Ours at work travel in pairs. We have two elevators side by side in a 4 storey building, and they <i>seem</i> to always* travel together.
*Of course not, but frequently.
“I go up,” said the elevator, “or down.”
“Good,” said Zaphod, “we’re going up.”
“Or down,” the elvator reminded him.
“Yeah, okay, up please.”
There was a moment of silence.
“Down’s very nice,” suggested the elevator hopefully.
“Oh yeah?”
“Super.”
“Good,” said Zaphod, “now will you tak us up?”
“May I ask you,” inquired the elevator in its sweetest, most reasonable voice, “if you’ve considered all the possibilities that down might offer you?”
A committee is a lifeform with six or more legs and no brain.
Josh, that’s not an elevator- it’s a clairvoyant Happy Vertical People Transporter.