Investigation of an elevator dispatcher system

To provide an efficient elevator system, a variety of diverse and sometimes conflicting constraints have to be solved. This paper focuses on using discrete event simulation as a means to model and explore elevator dispatching strategies. Witness simulation software has been used as a test-bed for model building, simulation and some experimentation. Model building using Witness model elements is described in detail followed by two different elevator call strategies. The main steps in the methodology are described with reference to a single elevator servicing a five-storey office building. The elevator call strategies are simulated and results compared. It was found that the data set significantly skews the results and overshadows any efficiency gains that might be possible from the different dispatching strategies. The paper concludes with the need to carefully select the data set as the basis for simulation comparisons and outlines future work required