Elevator Dispatching Problem
Annamalai Natarajan
Department of Computer Science
Colorado State University
Fort Collins, Colorado 80523
Abstract
Traditionally Elevators are operated by complex heuris-
tic algorithms with more emphasis on control engineer-
ing. This paper summarizes a Genetic Algorithm ap-
proach to solve the Elevator Dispatching Problem. The
dispatcher is modeled based on the Destination Floor
Control System by which it groups passengers based
on source and destination thereby minimizing the num-
ber of elevator round trips. The goal of this approach is
to perform better then sequence dispatchers.
Elevator Dispatching Problem
The purpose of an elevator dispatcher is to determine the
schedule of elevator movements that best meets a specified
goal(Hamidia and Mulvaney 2007). The dispatchers are ei-
ther centralized or decentralized. The approximate wait time
for an elevator depends on the dispatching strategy used by
the elevators. Though the search space is partially observ-
able with static number of floors and elevators there is an
element of stochasticity involved with the passenger arrival
rates and destinations. The Elevator Dispatching problem is
a real world optimization problem.
Previous Work
The elevator dispatchers are a class of problems which are
time bound autonomous systems. They are Discrete Event
Systems operating in a continuous time space. This prob-
lem has been studied by various disciplines including Com-
puter and Electrical Engineering, Control Engineering, Ap-
plied Mechanics, Operations Research and Computer Sci-
ence. The research documented here is strictly limited to
the Computer Science discipline. Hamidia and Mulvaney
proposed a prioritized A search algorithm which primarily
addressed the issue of time involved to make decisions. It
is modeled on the manufacturing process approach by as-
signing the first job to each machine while detailed assign-
ment of jobs was refined later(Hamidia and Mulvaney 2007).
Gudwin and Gomide treated the elevator system as a dis-
crete event control system and used Genetic Algorithms to
make optimal decisions(Gudwin and Gomide 1994). It is
based on the Limited Lookahead Policy strategy proposed
Copyright
c 2008, Association for the Advancement of Artificial
Intelligence (www.aaai.org). All rights reserved.
by Chung and Lafortune. Muhammad and Ono solved the
Elevator Scheduling problem using DNA computing by cre-
ating DNA sequences of length directly proportional to the
elevators traveling time(Muhammad and Ono 2006). Beiel-
stein, Ewald and Markon developed an evolution strategy
(ES) that is capable of optimizing the neuro-controller of an
elevator group controller(Thomas Beielstein1 and Markon3
2003). A Reinforcement Learning(RL) approach has been
proposed by Crites and Barto by using one RL agent per
elevator(Crites and Barto 1995). Munoz, Llanos, Rincon,
Els and Almeida analyzed and implemented four elevator
dispatching algorithms using reconfigurable architectures
based on FPGAs(Daniel M. Munoz and Almeida 2006). In
yet another approach Fujino, Tobita, Segawa, Yoneda and
Togawa proposed an elevator group control system which
can change control setting according to individual floor uti-
lization situations(Atsuya Fujino and Togawa 1995).
The Elevator Dispatcher
The Elevator dispatcher is designed to handle passenger
traffic from a building with the following Elevator System
dynamics. The building has ten floors numbered from 0
through 9. It is serviced by two elevators of capacity 20 pas-
sengers each. The floor time is 1.45 seconds it is the time
taken by an elevator to travel from one floor to another. Stop
time is set to 7.19 seconds it is the total time taken to deceler-
ate, open doors, close doors and accelerate. The load/unload
time is the time taken for a passenger to enter/exit the el-
evator it is set to 2 seconds. The elevator dispatcher im-
plemented is centralized and tuned to handle a typical af-
ternoon down peak traffic(traffic from floors 1 through 9 to
ground floor). The system is controlled by the hall calls(at
each floor) and cabin calls(within each elevator). The goal
of the dispatcher is to minimize the total travel time(time
from when an elevator is requested to the time the passenger
gets off at the destination floor).
The system is modeled as two parts. Part I simulates pas-
senger arrivals and creates a log file. Part II reads in the log
file applies Genetic Algorithm to arrive at an optimal solu-
tion and it then simulates the actual servicing of passengers.
Part I is coded in R and part II in java.
Pseudo Code
 Time 00 05 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55
Rate 1 2 4 4 18 12 8 7 18 5 3 2

Table 1: Afternoon Down-Peak traffic Profile

1: Simulator creates a Log File

2: Read Log File
3: Create Passenger genes
4: Slide Window on Genes
{
5: Preassign Elevators
6: Population <- Chromosomes
7: Repeat(Number of Generations)
{
8: Evaluate Fitness(Population)
9: Intermediate Population <-
Select(Population)
10: offspring <-
Crossover(Intermediate Population)
11: if (probability < Mutation Prob)
offspring <- Mutate(offspring) Figure 1: Distribution of Down Peak Hall Calls
12: One <-
Select(Top N of Initial Population)
13: Two <- Select(Top N of offspring)
14: Population <- (One + Tw0)
}
15: service()
}

Below is a description of the various components of the

Dispatcher.

Step 1: The average number of passengers in each floor is

given from Table 1. The simulator uses this traffic profile
to create the Log file. The inter floor traffic varies between
0 to 10% of the traffic to the ground floor. The traffic pro-
file is taken from Crites and Bartos paper on Reinforcement
Learning(Crites and Barto 1995).
The arrival of passengers is assumed to be a poisson dis-
tribution and the inter arrival between passengers in each
five minute interval is assumed to be an exponential distri-
bution. Figure 1 plots the arrival of passengers for an hour.
The two peaks correspond to the passenger arrival rates in
the 20-25 and 40-45 five minute intervals. Figure 2 plots the Figure 2: Passenger arrivals
distribution of hall calls in an hour. It can be observed that
the number of passengers in each bin vary. It is maximum in
the 20-25 and 40-45 bins. The last set of passengers in these tuple which includes passenger information like the passen-
two bins overlap with the first set of passengers in the next ger number, source, direction of elevator request and request
bins. Hence there are spill overs in each bin depending on time. It also clubs passengers from the same source to the
passenger count within that bin. These spill overs tend to ac- same destination who request for an elevator at the same
cumulate in the 35-40 bin and slope there after. The Log file time together treating them as a single passenger.
has entries by rows identifying each passenger by its unique
passenger number along with the passenger source, desti- Step 4: Window size is preset to 20 seconds. A window
nation, direction of travel and request time. The passenger size of twenty seconds was chosen as a window size less
destination is used only in the service simulator in step 15. then twenty seconds caused a near sequence servicing of hall
calls. Initially the start time is zero hence all hall calls placed
Step 2 & 3: Step 2 reads in the log file and step 3 creates within a span of 20 seconds are collected and processed. The
passenger genes. The passenger gene is one half of the gene window is then slided by 20 seconds over the log file to col-
lect the set of hall calls in the next window. In this manner
the entire log file is processed in 20 second chunks. Steps 5
through 15 are repeated for every 20 second intervals.
Step 5: Each hall call within the 20 second window is pre-
assigned an elevator. The elevators are assigned in sequence.
For even number of hall calls each elevator gets its equal
share for odd number of hall calls one of the two elevators
is chosen with a probability of 0.5. The preassigned eleva-
tors are the elevator genes, the second half of the gene tuple.
Each gene tuple is a valid hall call.
Step 6: The size of the initial population is preset to 30.
It has been identified from several runs that the performance
does not vary considerably by increasing the size of the pop-
ulation. It is also inspired from Grefenstettes GA parameter
settings(Grefenstette 1986). Each chromosome is a valid se-
quence of gene tuples without repetition. The genes hold
both passenger and elevator information to distinguish the
hall calls in the current window as well as in the subsequent
windows if they are dropped.
Step 7: Repeat steps 8 to 14 for number of generations.
It was identified from various runs that generations greater
then six produced the same results making it computation-
ally expensive. Hence the GA was tuned to perform with ten
generations.
Step 8: The fitness function evaluates the fitness of an in-
dividual chromosome. The goal of the Elevator Dispatcher
is to minimize the total travel time. The fitness function
reorders hall calls and accommodates hall calls within one
another provided they can be serviced one after another ef-
ficiently also complying to the system dynamics. The fit-
ness function then computes the individual chromosomes
fitness by summing up the travel to time(current floor to
source floor), DOCA time(decelerate, open, close and ac-
celerate time), travel from time(source floor to destination
floor), load time, unload time and penalties. The assumption
here is that since the destination of passengers is unknown
the destination is set to 0 if the direction of request is down
and to 9 if the direction of request is up. The penalties are
included to favor dropped passengers from the last window
over new passengers, as the goal is to minimize the total
travel time. If the dropped passengers are serviced first in
the current window the chromosome incurs zero penalty the
more a dropped passenger is delayed the higher the penalty.
This on the whole helps steer the algorithm in subsequent
generations to service dropped passengers.
Step 9: The intermediate population is generated by Tour-
nament Selection. The approach is to randomly choose two
parents from the initial population and compare their indi-
vidual fitness function values. The parent with the mini-
mum fitness value is the fittest as it incurred less penalty.
This process is repeated 30 times to generate intermediate
population.
Step 10: One point cross over is applied to intermediate
population. It could result in duplicates and defective so-
lutions. In the latter case the parents are repeatedly chosen
randomly until they yield valid offsprings. Two different
parents result in two offsprings. This also results in implicit
mutation.
Step 11: With a probability of 0.01 the offsprings are mu-
tated. Among the two offsprings one of them is chosen with
a 0.5 probability. Two passengers from the chosen offspring
are picked randomly and swapped. Steps 10 and 11 together
generate the next generation of chromosomes.
Step 12 & 13: Steps 12 and 13 choose the top N(15 chro-
mosomes each) from the initial population and the next gen-
eration. The top 15 in each generation is chosen as it mono-
tonically increases the fitness of each subsequent generation.
Step 14: The newly selected 30 chromosomes replace the
initial population and the process is repeated.
Step 15: Following the ten generations the final chro-
mosome is passed to the service simulator to actually
service the passengers. The hall calls in the chromo-
some are executed in sequence by each elevator. The ter-
minating criterion is either a maximum service time of
twenty(corresponding to window size) seconds is reached
or the elevator exceeds its capacity. In either case the sys-
tem exits the simulator. The hall calls requested within this
window but could not be serviced are considered in the next
window with the next set of hall calls. The simulator uses the
actual destinations to service passengers. In case of a single
hall call in the window the preassigned elevator services the
passenger. When there are no hall calls in a window (there
are gaps towards the end of the five minute intervals in the
first and last bins as it is skewed towards the start time) the
system instantly slides the window over the log file.
Performance and Evaluation of Results
In this section we evaluate the performance of the Eleva-
tor Dispatcher. The Log file used for the experiment is
LOG.DAT and has 761 passengers.
Figure 3 plots the average waiting time and average travel
time over ten runs for a 20 second sliding window. The x-
axis corresponds to the floors 1 to 9 and the y-axis the time
in seconds. The number of passengers in the plot will not
sum up to 761 as the passengers with the same source, des-
tination and time stamp are clubbed together treating them
as a single passenger. Secondly the performance is directly
attributed towards the down peak traffic and hence the 0 to
10% interfloor traffic is not plotted. The travel time over a
single run well exceeded over 200 seconds but the average
travel time over ten runs is as high as 120 seconds. Logically
the average wait time is lower then the average travel time
across all floors.
Figure 4 plots the average number of passengers dropped
in each floor over ten runs for a 20 second sliding window.
Figure 3: Average Wait Time and Average Travel Time over Figure 4: Average Number of passengers dropped in each
10 runs, window size = 20 sec floor over 10 runs, window size = 20 sec

The x-axis corresponds to the floors 0 to 9 and the y-axis

the time in seconds. This plot accounts for the inter floor
traffic as well. The number of passengers dropped in a single
run exceeded four hundred in some cases but the average
number of dropped passengers is well below 200.
From theses two figures it can be inferred that the diver-
sity of the Genetic Algorithms is directly responsible for the
different service sequences in each run as the Log file(in step
1) and the service simulator(in step 15) remained constant
over the ten runs. This also hints towards the large scale
parallel processing approach to solve dynamic scheduling
problems.
We next experiment with the window size. Figure 5 and
Figure 6 plots the wait time and travel time for a single run
for a 20 second sliding window and 23 second sliding win-
dow respectively. The overall travel time for a 23 second
sliding window is decreased from 200 seconds to 150 sec-
onds as more hall calls can be serviced in the 23 second slot
when compared to the 20 second slot. But the wait time for
passengers in floors 4 and 8 exceed the travel time from the
same floors and the wait time in the first floor is nearly as Figure 5: Wait Time and Travel Time, window size = 20 sec
high as the travel time.
Figure 7 and Figure 8 plots the number of dropped pas-
passengers arriving towards the end of the 5 minute inter-
sengers in a single run for a 20 second sliding window and
val
23 second sliding window respectively. From these two fig-
ures it can observed that the window size has an impact on A more real world simulation of inter arrival time of pas-
the number of dropped passengers across each floor. As the sengers would be between passengers in each floor in each
window size increases more passengers are accommodated five minute interval rather then simulation of inter arrival
within each window. time of passengers across all floors in each five minute
intervals
The service simulator services passengers in sequence of
Possible Bugs
the fittest chromosome after ten generations even if the
The log file simulator skews the passengers towards the sequence is not in a logical order (i.e. passenger n+1 is
start of each 5 minute bin when there are practically no serviced before passenger n from the same floor though
Figure 6: Number of passengers dropped in each floor, win-
dow size = 20 sec
Figure 7: Wait Time and Travel Time, window size = 23 sec
passenger n arrived before n+1)
From the service simulator the time taken to service pas-
sengers usually exceeds 20 seconds(window size). Hence
this overlap time will need to be accounted in the wait
time of passengers across all windows. But the modeled
dispatcher prunes this overlap time and treats the elevator
as readily available to service the next passenger.
In some cases passengers are dropped to the next window
to be serviced as many as 23 times which is practically
unacceptable
The log file simulator occasionally generates inter floor
Figure 8: Number of passengers dropped in each floor, win-
dow size = 23 sec
traffic with origin and destination as the same floor
Conclusion
The problem was difficult to formulate and implement.
A considerable amount of effort went in to aligning the El-
evator system to a real world system with few assumptions
and minor modifications. A good deal of approximation was
incorporated in the simulators to avoid the intrinsic details
of the elevator system dynamics. But no compromise was
made to the AI part of the Elevator Dispatcher. This ap-
proach was primarily motivated by Gomide and Gudwins
paper on a discrete event control system using Genetic Al-
gorithms to make optimal decisions(Gudwin and Gomide
1994).
This dispatcher did not perform up to my expectations as
the total travel time of passengers is high with many pas-
sengers dropped to subsequent windows to be serviced. It
certainly makes less number of round trips then a sequence
dispatcher. The nature of Genetic Algorithms along with
penalties caused the dropped passengers to be serviced first
in subsequent windows over new passengers. Time seems
to be a critical factor in these class of problems and using
search to explore the solutions space is expensive. To con-
clude the approach is feasible.
Future work includes fixing possible bugs as listed in the
previous section. To treat the problem as a discrete event
system in continuous time space and exploit parallelism.
Also come up with an estimate of approximate wait time
when a passenger requests for the service of an elevator.
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