Beyond the pandemic: thyssenkrupp Elevator launches forward-looking technologies for more comfortable and secure mobility experience

As cities across the world ease Coronavirus lockdown restrictions, it is important to ensure that elevators used by millions of people every day remain a comfortable, efficient and secure way of transportation. thyssenkrupp Elevator offers several options to create a clean and healthy car environment, aiming to reduce the risk of virus transmissions.

To ensure peace of mind for passengers, the company is focusing on three pillars: hygiene technologies, social distancing, and touchless technologies to prevent infection in elevators and escalators in public places. Many of the resulting innovations will remain relevant even after the pandemic.

“The pandemic is definitely accelerating some interesting trends in the elevator industry. thyssenkrupp Elevator is well equipped for the current challenges. We have been exploring several technologies in recent years, such as smart spaces monitoring, remote operation, robots for sanitizing spaces and many more. Today, we have appropriate solutions to protect passengers during the pandemic. Moreover, we also provide innovative technologies for tomorrow that go beyond today’s urban mobility,” says Peter Walker, CEO of thyssenkrupp Elevator.

Regarding the first pillar “clean technologies”, the offerings range from handrail sanitization to thermal cameras to detect infected passengers. To clean the air in the cabins efficiently, thyssenkrupp Elevator uses air purification with special filters as well as UV-based solutions.

“Touchless technologies” are highly relevant, too. Using a special kick button the passenger can call a cabin with a simple toe tap instead of touching a pad or button by hand. Experts foresee that touchless technologies will achieve a high adaption in many areas. Forwarding-thinking technologies like the kick button are therefore solutions that are here to stay.

“Social Distancing” as the third pillar of thyssenkrupp’s strategy to fight the pandemic has led to the development of a special Social Distancing Service including traffic monitoring for elevator systems. This service helps tenants stay safe by limiting elevator passengers per cabin, so physical distance can be maintained. With the Social Distancing Service, thyssenkrupp Elevator assesses the elevator traffic to help balance building congestion risks with social distancing needs. Based on the needs, the company changes the dispatching software to limit the number of passengers assigned to each elevator car. Using data captured by the predictive maintenance IoT solution MAX, thyssenkrupp also provides data and information about traffic changes, so passenger wait times and social distancing needs can be balanced.

About us:

thyssenkrupp Elevator
thyssenkrupp Elevator brings together the Group’s global activities in passenger transportation systems. With sales of €8.0 billion in fiscal 2018/2019 and customers in over 100 countries, thyssenkrupp Elevator built its position as one of the world’s leading elevator companies from scratch in a mere 40 years’ time applying thyssenkrupp unique engineering capabilities. With more than 50,000 highly skilled employees, the company offers smart and innovative products and services designed to meet customers’ individual requirements. The portfolio includes passenger and freight elevators, escalators and moving walks, passenger boarding bridges, stair and platform lifts as well as tailored service solutions for all products. Over 1,000 locations around the world provide an extensive sales and service network to guarantee closeness to customers.

thyssenkrupp
thyssenkrupp is a technology group with strengths in materials. Over 162,000 employees in 78 countries work with passion and technological know-how to develop high-quality products and intelligent industrial processes and services for sustainable progress. Their skills and commitment are the basis of our success. In fiscal year 2018/2019 thyssenkrupp generated sales of €42.0 billion. Together with our customers we develop competitive solutions for future challenges in their respective industries. With our engineering expertise we enable our customers to gain an edge in the global market and manufacture innovative products in a cost- and resource-friendly way. Our technologies and innovations are the key to meeting diverse customer and market requirements around the world, growing on the markets of the future, and generating stable earnings, cash flows and value growth.