2012 IEEE International Conference on Information Science and Technology
Wuhan, Hubei, China; March 23-25, 2012
Design and Optimization of Dispatching Rules for Elevator Group
Control Aiming at Energy Saving
Jing Wang, Xiaomu Mu, Jun Xu, and Shuning Wang
Abstract—In buildings with many elevators, elevator group
control algorithm is used to efficiently dispatch the elevators to
serve each hall call generated from different floors. Recent
researches for energy saving of elevator system have attracted
widespread interest, most of which achieve energy saving by
minimizing the estimated energy consumption. This paper
propose a rule-based algorithm for elevator group control,
which focuses on design of dispatching rules for energy saving
based on the inner mechanism of the elevator system. As the
weights and other parameters for the rules matters a lot to the
performance of the algorithm, coarse-to-fine searching strategy
is used for optimization. It can overcome the combinatorial
explosion of feasible set and the limitation of simulation
platform. The proposed algorithm is tested on a very practical
simulation platform. The result is reliable, and shows the
efficiency of the algorithm on energy saving.
I. INTRODUCTION
W IT H the broad application of energy technology in this
century, energy issue brings many problems, such as
environmental pollution and energy shortage [1], and
this causes the public’s extensive attention to energy saving.
As a great part of power consumption in city, the proliferation
use of elevator system causes the public’s concern, making
reducing the energy cost demanding. This paper concentrates
on energy saving by optimization of group elevator
scheduling in mid-rise and high-rise buildings, as
non-optimized elevator group control leads to poor service
performance and much more power consumption.
Elevator group control system (EGCS) manages
systematically three or more elevators in a group to efficiently
transport passengers. Efforts have been made to reduce
energy cost of elevators, some focusing on the special
assignment of idle cages [2], some on optimization of zoning
[3], and others on minimization of estimated energy cost [4],
[5] and so on. Although these efforts can achieve energy
saving, more or less, the cause is not quite clear.
This paper uses rule-based dispatching algorithm (RB) for
EGCS, and Fig. 1 shows the structure. There are several
Manuscript received December 1, 2011. Project jointly supported by the
National Natural Science Foundation of China (61074118, 60974008,
61104218, 61134012), and The Research Fund for the Doctoral Program of
Higher Education (200800030029).
J. Wang is with the Department of Automation, Tsinghua University,
Beijing, China, 10084. Email: wang-jing08@mails.tsinghua.edu.cn.
X. Mu is with the Department of Automation, Tsinghua University,
Beijing, China, 10084. Email: mxm09@mails.tsinghua.edu.cn.
J. Xu is with the Department of Automation, Tsinghua University,
Beijing, China, 100084. Email: yun-xu05@mails.tsinghua.edu.cn.
S. Wang is with the Department of Automation, Tsinghua University,
Beijing, China, 100084. Email: swang@mail.tsinghua.edu.cn.
978-1-4577-0345-4/12/$26.00 ©2012 IEEE
reasons for using rule-based method. Firstly, energy saving
can be achieved by studying the inner mechanism of the
elevator system and it can be easily implemented in the form
of rules. Secondly, the influence of the current traffic
conditions to the dispatching can be described well by design
and combination of several reasonable rules, and it can avoid
the huge complexity caused by the uncertainty of hall call,
such as passenger numbers and destinations [6]. Thirdly,
rule-based method can be easily implemented and extended,
and the fast performance suits well for the immediate
allocation system we studied. The algorithm is described in
detail as follows.
δ(⋅,1) δ(⋅, 2) δ(⋅, n)
n
f i = ∑ δ (i , j ) w j
j =1
a = arg min{ f i }
1≤ i ≤ m
Fig. 1. Group control algorithm structure
In a building with m elevators, once a new hall call is
generated, the dispatching algorithm is called. Based on the
input information, including the hall call information and the
state of the system, the dispatching algorithm evaluates the
dispatching cost f i of each elevator i by rules as follows,
n
f i = ∑ δ (i, j ) w j ,1 ≤ i ≤ m
j =1
where n denotes the number of rules, δ (i, j ) denotes the
evaluated dispatching cost of elevator i by rule j , and w j
denotes the weight of rule j , which shows the importance of
the rules. The elevator with the minimal dispatching cost is
chosen to respond to the new generated hall call.
The energy saving performance of the proposed elevator
group control algorithm can be improved in two ways. One is
design of effective rules, and the other is parameter
optimization for rules and decision fusion. The rest of this
paper is organized as follows. Design of dispatching rules and
optimization of parameters are presented in section2 and 3. In
section 4, the performance of the proposed algorithm is tested
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and discussed, and in the final section there is an overall
conclusion.

II. DESIGN OF DISPATCHING RULES 0.3

energy consumption(upward)[kwh]
The performance of the EGCS is mainly concerned in two 0.2

aspects, the service performance and the energy consumption

performance. This paper focuses on energy saving of the 0.1

EGCS while maintaining satisfied service performance, as 0

the main task of elevator system is serving passengers.
Consider the service performance first. The service -0.1
1
performance can be measured by many criteria, such as loa
d in
15
average waiting time (AWT), average travelling time, long gra
te of e
0.5 10
l eva
wait ratio, congestion degree in the cages [7], [8]. We design to r[1
00%
5
nc e[f
loo rs
]
0 0 l d ista
dispatching rules to improve these criteria. It is known that ] trav e

the passenger prefers short waiting time at the floor, low

congestion degree and few stop times in the cage. As nearer
cages or cages with fewer tasks can serve the new generated
hall call more quickly, they may have higher priority for

energy consumption(downward)[kwh]
0.3

dispatching so as to reduce the passengers’ waiting time.

However, if the nearer cages have a lot of tasks already, the 0.2

addition of the new task may extend the service time of the 0.1
assigned calls and make the overall performance poor. For
example, if a cage is at 10th floor running downwards to serve 0

two calls A and B for upwards at 6th and 4th floor, when a
new hall call C at 8th floor for downwards is generated, the -0.1
1
cage is nearer and may be chosen to serve the new call. But loa
d in
15
gra
the addition of call C may make the waiting time of A and B te of
ele
va to
0.5 10
5 o rs]
increase a lot. If there is another cage idle at 11th floor, it is r[ 10
0% 0 0 ld istan
c e[flo
] trav e
more suitable to choose that cage to serve the new call,
though it may cause increase in energy consumption. Fig. 2. Database of energy consumption
Apart from the influence of the current traffic status, the
possible future hall calls may also affect the performance of According to the above, the dispatching rules are designed.
the system. For example, if a new hall call at upper floor for Take the following rule for example, which aims at reducing
upwards is generated when all the elevators are moving the Ratio of Waiting Time over 90sec. Suppose it is the jth
downwards, the new call may have to wait a long time to be rule and we estimate the longest waiting time of the calls
served, making the system performance poor. As uniform assigned to the ith elevator as MaxWTi , and set
distribution of cages can ensure good service ability for each
floor’s hall call and avoid the elevator cluster that lead to poor δ (i, j ) = max{0, MaxWTi − TH j }
performance, trying to have a balanced distribution of cages where TH j is a threshold parameter. This rule will take effect
could improve the service ability for future passengers. only when MaxWTi ≥ TH j .
With satisfied service performance, energy saving of
elevator system is studied. As the acceleration and These rules are selected and optimized by the process in
deceleration of cages consume more energy than the status of section 3, and then used in the proposed algorithm, which
idle and uniform moving, run count is used to measure the choose the elevator with the minimal dispatching costs to
energy performance of EGCS[9]. Therefore energy can be serve the new call.
saved by reducing the acceleration/deceleration number of
elevators. Another commonly used criterion for energy III. OPTIMIZATION OF PARAMETERS
performance is Energy consumption (EC). Fig. 2 shows the In the proposed RB algorithm, the decision fusion part has
database of the energy consumption statistics in upwards and a great effect on the performance, as different weights and
downwards operations of elevator, respectively. Different threshold parameters for rules can achieve different
curves represent the energy consumption of an elevator performance. The threshold parameters are obtained by
moving 1 floor to 15floors without stop, as the simulation analysis of the EGCS, and the weight of the rules are tuned
condition is a building with 16 floors. The figure shows off-line on the simulation platform and the following shows
energy can be regenerated during light loaded upwards and the optimization process.
heavy loaded downwards, which can be used to achieve Consider the following optimization problem for the
energy saving. weights of rules:
max Performance ( w1 ,… , wn ) (1)
wi ∈{0,1,…9}
i =1,…, n

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where wi is parameters ranging from 0 to 9, n is the number
AWT and EC are used to characterize the performance of
of rules used, and Performance ( w1 ,… , wn ) denotes the
the EGCS, as they are the most commonly used criteria. At
performance of the algorithm with the weight set the end of simulation, statistics data of AWT and EC are
as ( w1 ,… , wn ) . given, while AWT is measured in seconds and EC measured
The optimization of problem (1) is complex and time in kilowatt hour. The simulation results and comparison are
consuming, since the space of parameters is quite large when shown in TABLE II and III, “Imp.” is performance
increase (The size of the feasible set above is 10n ),which is improvement of RB algorithm compared to MWT algorithm.
TABLE II shows the performance in Interfloor traffic
referred to as combination explosion, and testing the
pattern under different passenger flow density. The
performance for a single set of weight combination will cost
comparison shows an improvement of 6%~19% in EC with
some time.
almost equal AWT, except in “300” case with 13% increase
Coarse-to-fine searching strategy is used to overcome the
on AWT.
problem above. First we roughly divide the space of weight
TABLE III shows the performance under different traffic
sets into several areas, and find a promising one among those
patterns with passenger flow density of 900 passengers per
areas. Then we search the promising area thoroughly to find a
hour. The comparison shows an improvement of 11%~13%
satisfied set of weights. In a word, problem (1) can be
in EC and 1%~4% in AWT in the cases of “Lunch Peak” and
decomposed into the following two problems.
“Uniform”. In the Up Peak and Down Peak traffic,
max Performance ( w1 ,… , wn ) (2) improvement of 9%~58% in EC is achieved while there is
wi ∈{0,5,9}
i =1,…, n
14%~29% loss in AWT. The cause is limitation of the
max max Performance ( w1∗ ,… , wi ,… wnΔ ) (3) proposed algorithm by using fixed parameters, for which
{ }
i =1, , n wi ∈ wiΔ ± 2, wiΔ
adaptive adjustment of parameters can be used to balance
Firstly let each parameter takes a few values and solve preference to the performance of AWT and EC.
problem (2) with exhaustive method. Take the parameter set
with optimal performance this problem, and record it TABLE II. PERFORMANCE COMPARISON IN INNERFLOOR
TRAFFIC PATTERN UNDER DIFFERENT PASSENGER FLOW
as w1Δ ,… , wnΔ . DENSITY
Then solve the problem (3) for a satisfactory set of weights N[passengers
Performance MWT RB
Imp.
using variable rotation method, with the parameters varies in /hour] (%)
AWT 11.35 12.82 -13
the subdivision areas. 300
EC 228.78 195.39 15
Thus, the size of the feasible set of the optimization AWT 18.09 18.85 -4
600
problem is greatly reduced from 10n to 3n + 2n , making the EC 346.74 281.59 19
problem solvable. AWT 27.54 27 2
900
EC 331.43 290.92 12
According to this, optimization of the parameters is done in
AWT 35.95 35.46 1
the most common traffic pattern, i.e. Interfloor traffic, with 1200
EC 288.14 272.25 6
common passenger flow of 900 passengers per hour. The
obtained optimal set of parameters w1∗ ,… , wn∗ is used in the TABLE III. PERFORMANCE COMPARISON UNDER DIFFERENT
TRAFFIC PATTERNS WITH COMMON PASSENGER FLOW DENSITY
RB algorithm. OF 900 PASSENGERS PER HOUR
Traffic Imp.
Performance MWT RB
IV. NUMBERICAL RESULTS AND ANALYSES Pattern (%)
AWT 15.45 17.63 -14
To evaluate the performance of RB algorithm, we test it on Up Peak
EC 394.49 359.66 9
Toshiba simulation platform, which is practical, and the AWT 22.11 28.47 -29
Down Peak
simulation result is reliable and convincing. The conventional EC 219.67 93.04 58
minimum waiting time (MWT) algorithm, which chooses the AWT 23.92 23.76 1
Lunch Peak
strategy with minimal estimated AWT for dispatching, is EC 337.44 293.38 13
AWT 31.28 29.91 4
chosen for comparison, since the elevator dispatching Uniform
EC 318.06 282.53 11
problem is NP-Hard [10], and the optimal policy for
dispatching is unknown. V. CONCLUSION
The performance of the two algorithms is tested under the
same system specification as TABLE I shows. In this study, a rule-based elevator group control algorithm
for energy saving is proposed. The design of dispatching rules
TABLE I. THE SYSTEM SPECIFICATION is presented and optimization of weights for rules using
Number of elevators 4 coarse-to-fine strategy is implemented. To verify the energy
Number of floors 16 saving efficiency, the proposed algorithm is tested by
Lobby floor 0
Height per floor 4m simulation. The energy saving efficiency of the proposed
Rated elevator speed 2.5m/sec algorithm is compared with conventional algorithm under
Elevator acceleration 0.8m/sec^2 various traffic conditions. The results indicated the proposed
Rated Elevator capacity 24 people algorithm can obtain an improvement of 6%~19% in energy
Door open/close time 1.8sec each
Passenger load/unload time 0.8sec per person saving under various traffic conditions while maintaining

126
similar time performance. We believe the flexibility of the
algorithm could be further improved by adaptive adjustment
of parameters in a further study.

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