So I’m at the fabulous Radisson SAS in Glasgow — a very nice hotel, nice staff (despite my reservations being screwed up), and with a room that looks tres Euro-techno-chic.
One of the cool things is that the hotel uses a different elevator interface. At the elevator bays you key in the floor you’re going to on a numeric keypad. The keypad’s display tells you which elevator to get on (A, B, or C in this case). When that elevator opens up, you get in. There are no buttons, but there is a display of the floors it’s going to. And it goes to the floor(s) it knows have been requested by people.
One idea behind this is that the elevator system can optimize the floors being visited — if there are three people going to 5, and another person going to 6, and yet another person going to 2, then one elevator can handle the 2 and the other one can handle the 5-6 — whose passengers don’t have to stop at 2 on the way.
Cool. Odd, but cool.
Some of the hotels in New York are converting to this type of system, but folks have been so confused by them (when was the last time elevator technology changed?) that the hotels have been posting staff at the elevator banks to explain. Otherwise people have been getting stuck in elevators that won’t go to their floor.
Paradigm shifts are often difficult to accept.
The Radisson here is certainly very service-oriented, but I haven’t seen any sign of folks either needing or getting help. Maybe visitors to Glasgow are smarter …
It’s also possible the interface has been a bit tweaked.
It *is* a bit jarring, as a difference, but it’s really quite simple enough that anyone who got stuck in an elevator that wouldn’t go to their floor would deserve to starve to death.