India is the second most populated country globally, and its ever-growing urbanization is leading to a scarcity of land. Continuous migration to metropolitans, insufficient space, and high population density in cities has resulted in congestion. This makes high-rise building a necessity in today's day and age, being the only practical way to meet the growing needs of the expanding cities. Be it in the inner cities, suburbs, or tier-II towns, high-rise building has been witnessing rapid growth in the last decade.

With the growth in tall buildings, there needs to be an advancement in the elevator industry for feasible and hassle-free traveling. Vertical development in the cities, both residential and commercial, presents vast opportunities for smart and sustainable elevating systems and solutions.

However, despite its rapid development, the high-rise segment has been facing certain challenges. Below are the common issues that this segment faces frequently and the technical improvements that are being introduced

Various challenges and their solutions

The major impediment in the Indian elevator high-rise segment is that despite being one of the fastest-growing segments, it isn't the most high-tech segment. The number of high-rise towers being built is relatively small in India, and the elevators supplied have generally lower speed and less sophisticated control systems.

Adding to the woes, even though newer housing societies may install modern lifts, there is not much emphasis on maintenance. Often housing societies change their leadership every year, which creates continuity problems.

Another pressing issue is regulation discrepancies across the country. Each state has a different agency regulating the segment. A national-level body for regulation and policy is needed. Almost two-thirds of the country is still not covered with any legislation governing the installation and maintenance of lifts. The industry players say a uniform Lift Act could not only help in improving product safety by using new technologies but also support optimizing development, manufacturing and installation costs.

High-rise elevator systems demand meticulous and impartial capacity analysis and detailed simulation. Not only should the building, its population and peak demands be correctly modeled, but elevator configuration and physical and/or dynamic zoning should also be determined. The correct choice of group control system plays a vital role, as does the correct choice of group sizing, elevator capacity and nominal speed.

For instance, TK Elevator‘s Destination Selection Control (DSC) technology, AGILE transforms the elevator systems into a seamless mobility ecosystem, enhanced to make elevators more intelligent and efficient. It helps in making transportation intuitive and efficient. With AGILE, a destination is chosen at the terminal on the landing, the intelligent dispatching software then analyses the request, gauges traffic demand and groups passengers based on the similarity of destinations. TK Elevator’s AGILE effectively saves waiting and traveling time for passengers.

Not to mention, Elevator system logistics and technology are frequently underestimated in high-rise buildings. Given that the elevator core forms the building’s load-bearing structure, and such factors are determined early in the design process, the right choices have to be made right at the start. There are few, if any opportunities to correct mistakes later. This demands logistical and elevator planning insight, extensive expertise and experience, and the application of correct safety margins.

A variety of additional technical measures are required to ensure safety and comfort within the elevator car at high speeds. High operating demands are placed on the suspension, track and guidance systems, and transmission and control systems must also be heavy-duty, reliable and accurate. The group control system’s quality and effectiveness of its artificial intelligence algorithms ultimately determine the transportation efficiency of the elevator system. These issues cause high-rise elevator system costs to increase proportionally.

With the advent of cloud-based and digital maintenance technologies, real estate and maintenance managers are constantly informed about the status of their equipment, thereby saving their hassle, time and money.

In anticipation of growing needs, TK Elevator has launched the industry’s 1st IoT-based preventive maintenance solution to maintain the high-level availability of vertical mobility systems in high-rise buildings. MAX is a game-changing service solution that extends remote monitoring capabilities to dramatically increase the current availability levels of existing and new elevators. Utilizing the power of the Internet of Things (IoT) technology, MAX makes it possible for an elevator to “tell” service technicians its real needs, including real-time operation statuses, component replacements, and proactive system maintenance.

High-rise buildings are our present and future requisite, changing times and needs have made high-rise buildings the preferred and highly viable solutions for India. A reliable, high-performing and well-chosen elevator system is necessary for the development of vertical cities in India.