Social Engineering Puzzle

[c9]

Dear Lazyweb*,

My office building is upgrading the elevators to a new and much better system. The scope of the upgrade is such that it runs from April 2007 to January 2008, and it is very disruptive to the building:

• one elevator is always out of service, even during rush hours
• the new elevators cannot be controlled from the same circuitry as the old elevators, so there are now two systems and two buttons on each floor
• everybody is impatient and hits both buttons, so they're constantly calling two elevators instead of one
• right how we're halfway, so there are two elevators on each system, maximizing the disruption because the programs are designed around having five elevators in service
• There are five elevators for the bottom half of the building, and five more for the top half, so all these effects are in play in different ways for each half, and huge crowds gather in the lobby waiting for elevators and watching "the other side" get better elevator service
• Added: the stairwells are all locked, so you can't use them for short trips, only to evacuate. Stupid stupid stupid.

The building management is reacting to the troubles by giving away free food every few weeks -- free ice cream! free muffins!

I think they should try to manage traffic flow better. Some modern smart elevator systems actually direct you to a specific elevator to make the movement more efficient (less stops per car), but this new system doesn't. I was daydreaming while five elevators filled up ahead of me this morning about what I could do to fix this.

I'm a big fan of daydreaming about guerrilla urban planning (I used to think about spraypainting my own bike lanes in Halifax), so I'd happily make signs and post them somewhere (lobby? each floor? in the elevators?). Most people would ignore them, but there could be a marginal benefit. Except.... what would the signs say?

* I don't remember if I ever explained that term. I stole it from jwz, who was one of the guys that wrote Netscape originally. It doesn't mean you're lazy (although you may be), it means that I'm too lazy to find the answer, and I want your collective willingness to comment to combine with your collective knowledge and ideas, and somehow bring a reasonable answer to me without much effort on my part. :-)

Comments

[sarah-sosiak.livejournal.com]

"Take the stairs."

[c9.livejournal.com]

This may not create the result I'm looking for.

[primary-suspect.livejournal.com]

The conference I was at in May had a session on smart elevators and scheduling so I dropped into check it out, quite fascinating how all of the elevators I take are uber-sucky (lots of Germans there).

Some of their systems were so smart they even took into account the weather so they could schedule themselves to handle more traffic at lunch time on a sunny day to the patio restaurant on the 15th floor vs raining days when few people go, etc... Also sensors to tell when the cars would fill up then go all the way to the ground (or wherever was pressed) without stopping at every floor if they were already full.

[iambic-cub.livejournal.com]

The stairs are locked? Why? Taking the stairs is a brain-dead easy way of slipping a bit of extra exercise into your day. I mean, remember that stupid ParticipACTION cartoon from way, way back with the rabbit and the tortoise. It taught a generation of Canadians to shun elevators and take stairs two at a time.