Modelling : Elevator / Lift Usage

Question
Modelling : Elevator / Lift Usage

A large corporation with offices filling a 40 storey building is concerned to minimize the waiting and travel times of its employees when using the lifts, which are regularly perceived as too long at certain times of the day. It is powerless to alter the number of lifts in service; instead it seeks to model the pattern of the use of the lifts, and set rules of operation and use for the lifts which might improve the service.

It is willing to invest in any hardware or software which might help (but it cannot physically provide more lifts, or alter the lift haulage mechanism).

(a)List some features of this situation which may be relevant to a model of lift usage.

(b)What information could be collected about or from, or provided to,lift users waiting at each floor,or within the lifts, which could assist lift operations?

(c)What specific objective could be set for best practice lift operations. Give some alternative objectives which could also be set.

(d)Prune and group your list of features from (a), and (briefly) suggest some type of mathematical modelling which might prove useful in meeting an objective you have identified in (c).