Are there any statistics on how common it is for an elevator to get stuck? If the elevator is serviced regularly (or as often as is required), how likely is it that passengers might get stuck? And if it does get stuck, what is the process involved to get it fixed and the passengers out?

-- Nalini Kuruppu (nalini@jps.net), January 27, 2000

Answers

No overall stats that I know of, but I can say that it is relatively rare. Certainly far less than 1 out of every 10,000 trips. Probably less than 1 in 100000.

There is no unified answer to the second part of your question. There is an endless variety of possible causes, fixes, etc.

For various technical reasons, when elevators do "break down", they are standing at a floor level a vast majority of the time. So being "stuck between floors" is made more rare.

Hope this sheds a little light.

-- John Brannon (akaelevman@AOL.com), January 27, 2000.

I've been stuck in an elevator plenty of times. Most of the time due to a power outage.

When I had to get out, building security opened the external doors with a key, and then opened the car doors. The elevator was at a floor.

Regards, Shaun.

-- Shaun Ewing (shaunewing@telstra.com), January 28, 2000.