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Making Lifts and Escalators Accessible for Disabled People

Merilyn Rikkinen, from the KONE Corporation in Estonia, attended the conference to explain how her company considers the needs of all users, and helps people move around in buildings in a more accessible way.

KONE is a Finnish company, over a hundred years old, and they are modern day people flow experts.  They are known for elevators, escalators and automated doors.  By conducting people flow planning they plan a building in collaboration with the builder to create safe, well-functioning, user-friendly spaces.

Merilyn described how they help to design a smooth user experience and people flow with a number of examples:

  • Residential flow is designed for apartment buildings. KONE considered the pain points when struggling to gain access to an apartment building, maybe it’s cold and you are struggling to find keys to get in.  By installing automated doors, in conjunction with an app which gives access, the system knows when you arrive and the doors open, the elevator is then waiting for you, and it automatically goes to the correct floor.
  • When visitors arrive at the front door, there is a camera and audio facility so you can see and hear the visitor and could take a picture of them.
  • Blind Square is an app which is a personal guide to help navigation. KONE has partnered with Blind Square and uses Blind Square beacons. Beacon technology can be used all over the world.  Merilyn demonstrated the app which gave verbal directions “20m to the elevator”, “revolving door”, “elevator at 11 o’clock”.  You have the option to call the elevator via the app.  Blind Square tracks the location of the elevator and tells the user “you are at your destination”.
  • An example from Finland showed that Blind Square operated until the customer reached the airport. KONE arranged for beacons to be installed in the buildings so that people can get better guidance in elevators and escalators through the airport.
  • The Sello Shopping Centre wanted to be more accessible so KONE put in beacons. This enabled the app to give navigational guidance to “ride escalator to the second floor”, and “forward to library”.  It’s possible to call the elevator from your phone and a verbal command tells you “elevator door opens”.
  • At a train station verbal guidance commands were given to “turn left for track four” and then “train arrives in nine minutes”.