Traffic Patterns in Hotels and Residential Buildings

Traffic patterns in office buildings are quite well-known –there is an up-peak in the morning, a mixed lunch-hour traffic peak and a down-peak in the evening. Lift planning and selection criteria for offices are based on the morning up-peak and lunch-hour traffic. The traffic patterns of hotels and residential buildings, however, have not been discussed much publicly. One reason is that in hotels and residential buildings traffic is expected to depend on cultural and regional issues more than in offices. At the moment, global hotel chains have their own standards for planning lifts, and these standards are mostly based on two-way traffic. This paper gathers together the existing lift-planning practices and selection criteria for hotels and residential buildings. In addition, measured daily traffic profiles of hotels and residential buildings are introduced.