June 16th, 2008


16
Jun 08

The World’s Fastest Elevators

According to Tom Van Riper and Robert Malone, authors of the article on The World’s Fastest Elevators at Forbes.com, to know where the world’s booming economies are, one need not spend time analyzing GDP reports, employment statistics and spending trends of consumers, but knowing the answer to where the world’s fastest elevators are is sufficient.

Tall buildings are significant at places where economy is on the rise and to keep these buildings on pace with the growth, they are outfitted with fast elevators that shuttle employees up and down at rocket speeds. Which company would want its employees on hour long breaks with elevators that carry people at snail’s pace?

An interesting fact here is, six of the world’s ten fastest elevators are in Asia and the Middle East, only three in North America and one in Australia. The fastest elevator in the world, at the Taipei 101 shuttles people at a speed of 1,010 meters per min, covering 100 floors in 39 seconds. With advances in elevator technology, it is made sure that people traveling in these high speed people movers have a comfortable ride, negating the effects of whistling noises and vibrations.

Here is a Google Maps of the 10 fastest elevators in the world.