Comprehensive analysis of elevator static sectoring control systems using Monte Carlo simulation

Abstract

For a long time, there was no action that a group controller could take during incoming traffic conditions other than returning the elevators back to the main entrance and opening their doors. Passengers would arrive in the main entrance and board the first available elevator car. However, in the early 1990s, sectoring was introduced during incoming traffic conditions. Sectoring is the soft division of the building into groups of (usually but not necessarily contiguous) floors, usually of equal populations. One or more elevators are assigned to a sector. The allocation of the elevator(s) to a sector can either be fixed (static sectoring) or variable (dynamic sectoring) within consecutive round trips. In addition, the size and composition of the different sectors can be static or dynamic. Sectoring is thus a powerful tool in dealing with peaks of incoming traffic demand. However, most of the analysis carried out to understand the effects of sectoring on the performance of the elevator traffic system has been based on simulation only. This paper presents a comprehensive calculation-based analysis of static sectoring control for incoming traffic as a control tool. The analysis is based on the approach of progressively increasing the number of sectors in a building, starting from a single sector (i.e., no sectoring) and proceeding to full sectoring (where the number of sectors equals the number of elevators in the group) and even increasing the number of sectors up to the total number of floors above the main entrance (which has been given the new term: super-sectoring). An analysis is carried out in each case showing the handling capacity, car loading, average waiting time, and average traveling time. Practical application: This paper allows a control system designer to adapt the actions of the controller to the change in passenger arrivals. The control can detect the intensity of passenger arrivals and adjust the number of sectors to suit such an arrival intensity. The aim would be to maximize the handling capacity of the system or minimize the car loading.