9 Elevator Facts You Didn’t Know!
- Elevator music was first introduced to elevators in the 1920’s. Its main purpose was to calm fearful passengers who were using an elevator for the first time.
- There are over 24 elevators are the historic Roman Colosseum build in 80 AD. The elevators were operated manually by over 200 slaves.
- Spain has the most elevators per capita in the world at 19.8 elevators for every 1000 people. That’s 5.1 more than its closest competitor, Italy. This can be attributed to the fact that 65% of Spain’s population live in multi-level apartment buildings.
- Elevator travel remains one of the safest means of public transit. Accidents that result in death are very rare – about 26 a year (mostly elevator technicians). To put that in perspective, there are 26 deaths from car accidents every 5 hours.
- The fastest skyscraper elevators in the world are in the Taipei 101 building in Taiwan. The two elevators travel at a staggering rate of 3,313 ft./min. That’s 37.7 MPH! The building is a sky high 1,670 ft. tall and it only takes a 30 second ride in the lightning fast elevator to get from ground to roof.
- Conversely, the Chrysler building in New York has one of the slowest skyscraper elevators in the world at 886 ft./min (10.1 MPH).
- One of the biggest fears when someone enters an elevator is the fear of it free falling. There has only been one reported instance of this occurring. In 1945, a B25 bomber crashed into the Empire State Building severing the cables of two elevators. One of the cars had a woman on it at the time and she survived the freefall due to the cables underneath the car cushioning the impact.
- Elevators spurred the development of penthouses. Before elevators, the highest rooms in a building were usually reserved for servants or low-rent tenants who were expected to climb the many flights of stairs to the top. With the invention of elevators, wealthy residents could now easily travel to the top floor and enjoy the magnificent views.
- Elevators move the equivalent of the world’s population in 72 hours. That’s 7.4 billion people in only 3 days!
Source: Elevator World, 6/29/2016 http://www.elevatorworld.com/blogs/page/2/