Fair and effective elevator car dispatching method in elevator group control system using cameras

We propose a control method for an elevator group control system to allocate elevator cars for all types of passengers, including general passengers and special passengers who are likely to be unfairly treated (e.g., with strollers, wheelchairs, or bulky luggage), in order to achieve fair waiting times as well as efficient transportation. Elevators are necessary for people to move vertically within high-rise buildings. Since the number of elevator cars is fixed, they have to be carefully controlled for effective dispatch. Furthermore, due to the limited capacities of elevator cars, some special passengers who require more space are often forced to wait much longer than general passengers for cars with sufficient empty space to arrive. These days, as cameras and other sensors that monitor the environment have become more common, and thanks to the recent advances in computer vision technologies, we can estimate the number of waiting passengers and the size of their belongings in elevator halls. By using such information gathered from muliple agents that monitor a specific elevator car or elevator hall, the proposed control enables effective dispatch for shorter and fairer waiting times. Experimental results using the simulated elevator control showed that our method could make waiting times fairer and achieved total efficiency to carry passengers. We discuss the reasons for the improvement as well as the limitation of our method.