The Unseen Inefficiency of Escalator Etiquette - Cheddar Explains

I don't know why I watched this. I always run as fast as I can up the stairs and pass all the slowpokes on the escalator.

Just make normal stairs, for God's sake.

And yet, all that weight? Over build it!

The roller coaster?

If someone tells me to walk on the escalator I tell them to get bent and continue standing in the middle with hands on both rails.

Idea: have single wide escalators at different speeds

Give me a nearby staircase that I can use in place of the escalator, and I will happily walk up or down that instead of the escalator. I prefer that anyway. Stairs are usually less awkward to walk on than escalators.

Next best option is what one commenter suggests below: separate standing and walking escalators. That makes perfect sense and accommodates everyone.

But you can forget about me standing idly on an escalator for 10 times as long as it would take me to walk it. This is especially true if there are few or no other people using it. It's extremely frustrating to stand around waiting for a machine to slowly transport me to a place I can walk to much more quickly, especially if I need to get somewhere by a particular time.

So keep right except to pass only applies to automobiles...
No, keep right except to pass must apply to everything.

TL;DW basically, this is the best system:

← middle →

stand walk stand

It’s easier to stand when you don’t hear a train coming or a bus you need to catch. Just being honest.

In the case of the 4 escalator setup, 2 up 2 down, why can't you just have one for exclusively standing and one for exclusively walking in each direction? That would solve all the problems in that specific case

Covid has put paid to this!

Solution:
Standards stand with your legs wide apart so that the walkers can rapidly crawl through. Even weight distribution and everyone is happy.

I always walk if there's no one in front, but I stand if there's a stander because I don't want so squeeze past a person in that minimal space next to them..

Nice

People are fuckin STUPID.
A person, singular, is smart.
I see it all around me everyday. People milling around with their heads up their collective asses, oblivious to what's goin on around them. I try my best to not bother those around me by simply being courteous and mindful of others.

In your animation the utilization is always 100%, thats simply not true. The majority of escalators are not even utilized 10%... what youre saying may or may not be true for NYC metro escalators

Speed the escalator up.

I am fine with the stand on the right walk on the left rule in NYC. But if someone decides to stand on the left, LET THEM!! Where do people get off having attitudes because someone is standing? These jerks act like they are entitled to make someone walk! You aren't! So don't say excuse me trying to make them move, or worse, say something smart-assed. First of all, where are they going to move to? Somebody is already standing on the right! So you literally want to force them to start walking up just because you want to walk. Really?! No!! Just wait the 5 seconds it's going to take to get to the top. If you really wanted to walk that badly, you should have taken the stairs in the middle!!! And the reason I started Googling articles on elevator etiquette and found this video was because I just had to yell at an idiot who wanted to make a young girl move because he wanted to walk. She was standing next to an older girl, maybe her sister, and she looked nervous when he kept saying excuse me trying to push past her. So I got pissed and told him she can stand if she wants and he started spoutung the "walk on the left stand on the right" bs and I just cut him off and yelled on the top of my lungs, "she can freakin' stand on the left if she wants to dammit!!!!"

They should make a better escalator instead of the rules

I can understand some people choose to stand -> when riding up escalator.
But if those people healthy & it's a down escalator 🤦‍♀‍️

Especially if those people break speed record when driving to get to that building,
dangerously pass by other vehicle,
basically road rage,
fight or steal someone else parking spot,
but standing still on down escalator like they will live forever.

waiting on a step for the escalator to get you up or down takes so long, it's kinda like watching elderly people slowly crossing the street with their walkers... if at least the damn thing moved faster I wouldn't mind standing.

Make normal stairs for Walker and impose fine on people walking on escalator.

Let me younger sister watch this in hopes it would tell her how to use an escalator but now she’s just scared it’s going to split in half when she’s stood on it 😂

In indonesia we dont do that split 😂

Not sure what the debate is about? If you walk down or up an escalator you’ll get there faster. Some people don’t have time to stand and wait.

We should treat the walkers like the ones in the walking dead

People who walk on escalators are unhappy.

Wrong. Walkers do take up more space, but by moving, they spend much less time and therefore are much more efficient.

People will never stop keeping Pit Bulls as 'pets' that kill neighborhood children, etc, but their escalator behavior can be changed?! Won't happen. asymmetric wear can be compensated for in the design, that should be easy. Interesting tangent: I once worked on a prototype spiral escalator for Otis Corp., which is based here in CT. Now that's a lop-sided escalator. I helped build a 1/4 mock-up of the idea.... it looked awesome.

Esclators excellerate your moving speed. They're not meant to be used as an elevator... Just like a Travelator, They're only in areas that get over croweded.

as someone who walks briskly even when not in a particular hurry I never try to pass someone up on an escalator I feel thats a violation of their personal space.

Wrong. Start by observing people on escalators. They don’t stand on every step.

Walking on escalator is only created in the 2020 to promote safe distancing against covid…if you want to look keep healthy go walk the stairs not the escalators, by standing one side on escalator cause unwanted congestion and time wasting to everyone!!!

When Americans come to London, they always seem to block the walking side.

escalator is designed to stand not walk. those who walk are trying to think that their time are important, but it show how low esteem they are.

In my city the walkers are by far the majority. Just try us and see what happens.

No matter how people stood, the escalator would break eventually. The only way to avoid that is with regular checkups and repairs to catch issues before they reach the breaking point.

If people standing on one side leads to accidents, then that means the maintenance crew should do checkups more frequently.
The only issue then is cost.

I think the stand on one side walk on the other is the optimal solution. Escalators should be maintained properly, it's not the responsibility of the average member of the public to not use an inherent feature of the escalator as they see fit, it's the job of the engineers who build and maintain it to consider how people actually use it. Giving people the choice is the most efficient choice for everybody, sure, perhaps it overall means the average time to get to the top is more, but the people who are standing don't mind, otherwise they'd walk, and the people who are in a hurry can walk, optimum solution for everyone, You think I'm going to stand like a sitting duck and miss my connection for a train that might be every 15 to 30 minutes? No way! Before people say just take the stairs, first of all, there often aren't any, secondly, metro stations are often the equivalent to 8 to 10 floors down or even deeper in some cities, and thirdly walking up an escalator is much faster than walking up stairs

Even if a walker takes up 3 times as much slace s/he does so for a shorter period of time, so it all depends on the speed of the walker.
It also said that the ideal way to stand in an escalator is in the middle, with arms on both sides, so there goes that 2x2 sardine solution out the window.
And I don't know aboyt everyone else but I don't feel comfortable standing one step below another person if they are tall, or having a shorter person one step below me, feeling like I'm centipeding with them.

During rish hour with large crowds, I can understand the idea if everyone is willing to pack onto the escalator, but oftentimes where I live there are usually less than 10 people scattered across the escalator, taking up unneccesary space where no one can pass. Even if you politely ask them, some are really slow to move and others give you a dirty look as if you just inconvenienced the heck out of their clearly not that busy day.

If there are stairs around, I will gladly take them, but oftentimes, escalator vs elevator are the only options, which I personally find a bit scary in case of a fire or even malfunction.

OK, this is stupid. I'm 63, and to this day I always walk up and down the escalator. If there are too many people on the escalator then I'll take the stairs (when available). I've always felt that people who stand on an escalator are just plain lazy. Oh, you like to work out at the gym? Then why, oh why are you just STANDING on the escalator?? If you insist, then please stand on the right. And if you want to improve efficiency, then everyone should walk up and down. Not just stand.

Yeah... no. Walking on escalators is faster and everyone does it. The waiting rule usually implodes when everyone just starts walking.

I have actually seen the "stand both side" in China... So I guess that's what it takes for such a system to work. :D

In my environment, university, most people walk on the escalator. The sanding side is therefore half empty and this always annoys me because this makes the escalator less efficient and I can‘t contribute to the optimisation.

A fine example of dragging out a video for the purpose of dragging out a video but filling it with as much unnecessary fluff as possible.

You're not including the third class of people who doesn't have a strict preference and will walk up the left side instead of waiting to get on the right side. Nobody leaves empty spots in the rush hour.
Also, what is the obsession with rushing people who'd rather wait instead of walk? Why not have everyone walk, or even run then - it's the fastest way after all!