Lifts and escalators both have a lot of parts that can go wrong and which go through a lot of wear every day. A lift especially if it goes wrong can have fatal consequences and both can easily lead to injury if something does go wrong. Safety systems on both are very important as is maintenance. On a lift you should have several safety features, if you don’t have these it may be time to upgrade. For a start a lift should not move if weight sensors show it as having a weight higher than its maximum load, this prevents problems occurring once the lift starts running. The tolerances and margin in terms of the load of a lift will usually be very much done on the side of caution with the actual strength of a lift’s cables far higher than that which the maximum load is given for: still though there should be brakes or safety cables for if the lift ever does have problems. An alarm in a elevator is important in case a lift does break down so people can call for assistance as people getting stuck for a long time or even overnight in a lift has its own health and safety problems. Escalators should have emergency stop buttons in several places along them and should be designed to make it very difficult for clothes or anything else to get caught in any moving part that was the problem with early escalator designs.
