ThyssenKrupp unveils revolutionary multi-directional elevator concept

[Digitonomy]

Elevator design hasn’t progressed very much during the past 160 years, and still comprises cabins which move vertically in a shaft supported by cables. This is inefficient and limiting, taking up a relatively large footprint and requiring people to wait a long time for the next lift. However, German conglomerate ThyssenKrupp has unveiled a revolutionary Willy Wonka-style elevator concept that allows several cabins to move both horizontally and vertically in the same elevator shaft, at the same time.
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Interesting idea.

What I found especially relevant for this forum was discussion in a different article that took ThyssenKrupp to task for not crediting forerunners of this approach:

Most glaringly, ThyssenKrupp failed to mention to the public Multi’s debt to the paternoster, a kind of elevator popular in continental Europe in the early 20th century. In a paternoster — the name refers to the large beads on a rosary, on which the Our Father is said — a series of elevator cars on a cable moves continuously in a loop, up one shaft and down another. The paternoster does not stop; there are no doors on the compartments or shafts, and passengers leap on and off. (Check out paternosters in the restored version of Fritz Lang’s 1927 film “Metropolis,” the February issue of Elevator World magazine or on YouTube.)

Paternosters encourage conversation. People chat as they share a car or say hello to others standing at the elevator landings as cars pass. The open compartments and shafts ameliorate some of the claustrophobia that people feel in elevators. Jumping in and out is a thrill. But they seem scary to some people, and since World War II, European governments have declared them unsafe and decommissioned most of them.

At its announcement last year, ThyssenKrupp gave industry insiders a ride in a paternoster — one of the few that have not been decommissioned — in an apparent nod to Multi’s historical lineage. But its press release and promotional video make no mention of it, leaving the general public in the dark. Perhaps it was because of the paternoster’s unsafe reputation. But even this concern for safety is a little disingenuous. One study noted that five people were killed on paternosters in Germany from 1970 to 1993, which is actually quite safe, considering that in 1970 alone, 19,193 Germans were killed in road and highway accidents. During the same years, it’s likely that fewer Germans were killed in paternosters than tripping over their own feet.