Lift Upgrading Programme
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Lift Upgrading Programme (LUP) is a Housing and Development Board (HDB) upgrading project which upgrades and improves the facilities at lifts at HDB flats. This is for housing blocks built before the year 1990, which have lifts only built to serve some floors, to meet privacy demands and to cut costs. For the upgrading to start works, there will be a poll and a 70% majority is needed for the works to go ahead.
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[edit] Overview
Singapore is a island country with a limited land area of 700 square kilometers and a population of 4 millions, meaning it is inevitable that most of the people have to live in high-rise apartments and work in high-rise commercial and industrial buildings. Therefore, elevators, escalators and moving walks have become a very important part of day-to-day life to enhance the vertical transportation industry in Singapore, neighboring countries and the rest of the world, as well.
The HDB started the Lift Telemonitoring System (TMS) in 1984 to monitor lifts in the high-rise public housing estates. To date, more than 20,000 lifts are monitored by the system. TMS uses SCADA technology to monitor real-time status of the lifts, such as breakdown and passenger trapped. from a centralised Master Station. The lift maintenance companies are automatically notified of any problem and in most cases, repairs are carried out even before a complaint is received. The introduction of TMS has resulted in better lift performance as historical data allowed HDB to pinpoint problem areas and improve the method of maintenance. Besides detecting problems with the lifts, TMS can also be used to carry out remote testing of lifts and other emergency standby equipment.
The HDB has started to build more apartment blocks that are more than 30-storey buildings. For residents to enjoy this trend, the existing elevator specification and designs such as speed, central system and hoist way equipment, will have to be changed to ensure better elevator ride, comfort and safety for elevator manufacturers to design, supply and install higher speed and more sophisticated types of lifts in HDB estates.
The Singapore government is in the process of renovating the older public housing estates. All elevators installed with staged landings are to be changed so they stop at all floors. The older, conventional relay controlled type would be replaced by new generation lifts with microprocessor control of elevators. It is estimated that S$5 billion would be spent on the upgrading of elevators over the next decade.
[edit] Lift elevator safety
New modern elevators are designed to be fail-safe and user-friendly to prevent accidents. The Singapore Lift and Escalator Contractors and Manufacturers Association (SLECMA) have set up a safety committee to create awareness in the usage of elevators and escalators.
The association ensures the lifts are installed under the following guidelines:
- Prevent any part of the passenger from danger at the leading edges.
- Prevent closing of elevator doors when passengers approach, stand near or at the door edge, even from a flat angle.
- 2.5 cm from lift cabin.
- 3.0 cm from lift lobby.
- 50 cm for door horizontal sensing.
- 1.8 m for door vertical sensing.
- Should not fail if any fail-safe related to safety device fails.
- Response time of the sensing device should be less than 50 milliseconds.
- Stopping time of the door should be less than 200 milliseconds.
- The voice & motor noise within control requirements.
- Smoke Control
- Reliability of Electrical Power Supply
- Effects of Fire
- Effects of Water
- Effects of Electro-Radiation
[edit] Lifts and politics
- Also see : Singapore general election, 2006
The upgrading of public housing, including the Lift Upgrading Programme (LUP), is a major issue in the recent general elections. The People's Action Party (PAP) had tied the scheduling of housing upgrades to the number of votes the party received in the election. The PAP argues that government is successful in raising the standard of living in the country, and those who support its various policies, including the upgrading, should be given priority. In the hotly contested Aljunied GRC, George Yeo (PAP) has placed lift upgrading the "top of [his] priority list" so that the lift would stop on every floor in as many blocks as possible. Sylvia Lim of the Workers' Party (WP) accused the PAP of being selective in its upgrading programmes, arguing that this is a divisive policy.
