APTA Elevators & Escalators - American Public Transportation ...

APTA Elevators & Escalators
Technical Forum
Meeting Minutes
Los Angeles April 3 & 4, 2007
Chairman Pat Welch called the meeting to order at 10 am local time.
Hussein Farah went over some housekeeping and safety procedures. Hussein also introduced the
other LACMTA attendees.
Robert Huff, Manager of Vertical Transportation at LACMTA, briefed the group on some
reorganization within in LACMTA. He stated that LACMTA is using the APTA Heavy Duty
Guidelines and believes they are starting to see benefits.
Pat Welch asked the attendees to introduce themselves. The list of attendees is attached to these
minutes.
All presentations and documents related to this meeting have been posted on the EETF page of
the APTA web site to download any of this documents use the following instructions:
Kevin—please insert instructions
Pat Welch then went over the agenda for the meeting. The agenda can be found on the EETF
page of the APTA web site.
Pat Welch introduced Ed LaGuardia from SEPTA. Ed gave a presentation on SEPTA’s fouryear
elevator/escalator mechanics training course. A copy of Ed’s presentation can be found on
the EETF page of APTA’s web site. SEPTA’s program is being developed and conducted in
cooperation with their labor organizations. The program is divided into four one-year terms.
Brian Turner, from the Community Transportation Center, gave an up-date on their effort to
develop elevator/escalator mechanic training. Brian’s presentation can be found on the EETF
page of APTA’s web site.
Ed’s and Brian’s presentations caused a lengthy discussion of elevator/escalator maintenance
approaches. Only 7-8 rail transit systems perform elevator/escalator maintenance in-house. The
others contract the maintenance out. VXT has done studies for rail transit systems on whether or
not to contract maintenance out. Due to labor concerns, the findings of these studies are
sensitive and are held closely by the clients.
Many transit systems indicate they have difficulty getting maintenance contractors to provide the
services needed. LACMTA will give a presentation on their experiences with contracting out
elevator/escalator maintenance tomorrow.

SEPTA and the Community Transportation Center will cooperate to create guidelines for
training elevator/mechanics that can be used by other transit systems.
Pat Welch went over the progress made on escalator start-up procedures. He presented a 13-item
checklist from the ASME A17 Code. This checklist is posted on the EETF page of APTA’s web
site.
Pat recommended that APTA adopt the ASME checklist. We asked the group did they want it to
be a guideline or a standard.
The group discussed the fact that some of the items on the ASME checklist would require transit
systems to repair items that are not necessarily repaired now before stopped escalators could be
restarted. An example is a single broken comb tooth.
The group voted to adopt the ASME list as a guideline. Given that guidance, Pat will proceed.
Tom Peacock gave a presentation on the status of the Project of the Year Awards. A copy of the
presentation is posted on the EETF page of the APTA web site. Tom recommended that the
awards by sponsored by the APTA Rail Transit Committee and be presented by the Chair of that
Committee during the Committee meeting held during the APTA Annual Rail Conference.
After some discussion, the group agreed to that approach. APTA will work with VTX and Kone,
the winners of the first annual awards to get articles written in Passenger Transport and to have
the awards presented at the Rail transit Conference in Toronto this June.
Tom Peacock will establish the annual cycle for nomination projects and approving awards.
Pat Welch and Ed Laguardia nominated a SEPTA Rack and Pinion elevator project—the first
such installation by a transit system in North America—for the next cycle of Annual Awards. A
copy of the presentation that they made is included on the EETF page of the APTA web
site.
During the afternoon, the attendees took a tour of LACMTA Civic Center and Wilshire/Vermont
Stations. LACMTA explained some of their elevator/escalator challenges and exhibited some of
their equipment in use. After the tour, the meeting adjourned for the day.
The meeting reconvened on the morning of April 4. Pat Welch reviewed the agenda for the day.
Tom Hausenbauer of Minnesota Elevator gave a presentation on the history, transit/airport
projects and capabilities of MEI. MEI’s specializes in solving unique elevator problems and has
engineered and successfully installed many unique elevators. A copy of the MEI presentation is
posted on the EETF page of APTA’s web site.
Pat Welch asked each of the attendees to summarize current elevator/escalator projects.

Hussein Farah gave a presentation covering LACMTA’s elevator and escalator maintenance
program. LACMTA has 250 elevators and escalators. His presentation covered adopting the
APTA guidelines, escalator controller motor energy savings, street escalator awning installation
and a 25-year modernization program.
LACMTA has experienced a 30-35% energy savings through the installation of devices that
control escalator motor voltage based on escalator load. The devices do not slow escalator
running speed.
LACMTA is pushing hard to use the APTA heavy duty guidelines on all new installations. The
challenge is overcoming old think and the continued use of old specifications.
LACMTA contracts out 100% of its elevator maintenance to Mitsubishi. Hussein described the
new maintenance contract as a Cadillac version as opposed to their previous Chevrolet version.
The contract contains liquidated damage provisions when the contractor does not meet well
defined performance goals. Both LACMTA and Mitsubishi are satisfied with the new contract.
Several Mitsubishi personnel described how they fulfill the contract. A long discussion and
question and answer session concerning the contract ensued.
David Evans, of Schindler reported on their projects. Schindler frequently supplies equipment to
the APTA heavy duty guidelines. Schindler is currently working on the installation of 8
escalators in the world trade center, 7 in the New York South berry terminal, 3 at LAX and 2 at
BART.
LACMTA asked why no current Schindler projects in LA. A discussing of how that might
happen in the future took place.
Jim Kinahan described Chicago Transit Authorities current projects. The average age of CTA’s
units is 25 years. CTA had a tough weather month in February creating extra maintenance
challenges. CTA currently has 9 older subway escalators being replaced. They are about to rebid
a contract for replacement of 2 elevators and 3 escalators.
Kone described major transit or airport projects in Seattle, Portland, Phoenix, San Diego,
Denver, Salt Lake City and Sacramento.
SEPTA has completed the first four phases of their rehabilitation program. They are about to go
for the fifth phase which includes 12 units. They will soon get their mechanics training program
started. SEPTA is also working on Standards for daily, monthly and annual elevator/escalator
inspections.
Pat Welch gave a presentation highlighting how VTX has been able to cut 3 months out of the
project design process by streamlining the submittal process. A copy of Pat’s presentation is
posted on the EETF page of the APTA web site. VTX is also involved in numerous audits of
transit system elevator and escalator program. VTX is working a project with MBTA to have
real time elevator/escalator availability status on the MBTA web site for accessibility planning.

Next EETF meeting will be held on Thursday, September 20 in conjunction with the National
Association of Elevator Contractor’s (NAEC) meeting. The meeting will be held in Atlantic
City, NJ. NAEC will provide the conference room. Wednesday, September 19 is a full day of
NAEC tradeshow floor activities.
The group decided that two meetings annual remains advantageous. The group asked that APTA
try to arrange the winter 2008 at an airport location. The Tampa and Orlando airports were
mentioned as possibilities. Pat Welch was good contacts at the Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport. So
that is a good candidate.
The group did some brain-storming on how to promote an elevator/escalator partnership with
airports. Bill Millar would like to have more overall cooperation between APTA and airports.
He is willing to allow Airports to participate in APTA activities without paying membership
dues. He would like to work towards a Memorandum of Understanding with Airports on
cooperation. APTA needs to identify the correct Airport trade association(s) to work with. A
suggestion was made that perhaps individual airlines would be interested.
The business portion of the meeting adjourned and the group boarded a bus provided by
LACMTA to go LAX airport for a presentation and tour of their vertical transportation facilities
and challenges.
LAX made the presentation in the original passenger terminal for the airport. This building is
now a museum that reflects the days when air travel was a pleasant adventure. The APTA group
had an opportunity to tour the museum displays.
The curator of the museum showed a short video on the history and the operating tempo of LAX.
Tom Wall, Airport Maintenance Superintendent of Construction and Maintenance Services, gave
a presentation on elevator, escalator and moving walkway operation and maintenance at LAX.
He highlighted some of the operation impacts when a key escalator is out of operation. Tom’s
presentation made it very clear that transit systems and airports share many elevator/escalator
problems and challenges. A copy of his presentation is posted on the EETF page of APTA’s
website.
After Tom’s presentation, the APTA group boarded an LAX bus for a tour of the active runways
at LAX. We got a first hand view of some of the preparations being made for Air Force One,
with President as a passenger, landing that evening. The bus stopped at the Bradley International
Terminal and the group observed the operation of some of the elevators and escalators in the
terminal.
The APTA group discussed ways to continue/increase APTA/Airport cooperation on vertical
transportation issues.