Introduction:

An Escalator’s primary attribute is to move large groups of people from one area to another at once. Escalators are often installed in places like train stations, airports, and colleges and can be used indoors and outdoors. The SmarNuts members were investigating the status of each escalator in the North Academic Center (NAC building). Most of the time the escalators in the building were either not functioning at all or under construction, which forces the students to climb the stairs all the time. There are 18 escalators in the building, two at the main entrance, eight in the Northside and eight Southside. As the members investigated three days in a row: the first day there were four escalators not working, the second day there were seven escalators not working, and the third day most of the escalators in the Northside were not working at all. The SmarNuts group also did an online survey which its result was as expected; most of the students were unsatisfied with the escalators conditions. To be more specific, one of the students have said that she had to climb the stairs to the seventh floor because the escalators were turned off; she was late for class. Therefore, we state that the escalators are constantly not functioning. As a result, we are writing this proposal to the president of The City College of New York to replace all non-functioning and semi-functioning escalators with newly installed escalators.

Research and Survey:

The SmarNuts group has done two surveys. One of the surveys was an online survey, and the other survey we asked random students who were heading to NAC building. We asked 20 random students and 90% of them were not satisfied with the status of escalators. Students who usually have classes in NAC building use the escalators more than three times a day. They explained how unhappy and dissatisfied they were with the escalator system at CCNY. One of the students stated, “I prefer to use the stairs because the escalators never work and the elevator is too slow.” Most of the students had similar thoughts about the issue. One of the questions we asked the students was, what would you recommend to fix this problem? The most common answer was: A replacement of the whole system will solve the problem instead of fixing it every time. According to the online survey results, 96.6% of the students use the escalators, 29% of students rated 0 out of 10 the escalators status, and the majority proposed to change them. See Fig. 1 and 2.

People who experience pain or difficulty when walking are thus able to traverse longer distances with ease and in relative comfort. The purpose of an escalator is to transport large groups of people faster. It performs this task efficiently, allowing individuals to move between potentially many floors of a building in a relatively short amount of time when compared to a staircase.

SmarNuts members have also done daily observations to see the status of the elevators. The elevators are usually not working around 12 P.M. Most of the time either downwards or upwards escalators are shut down for all floors all day.

Action plan:

Our plan is to replace all the escalators in NAC building and install them with new escalators just as Hunter college did on their east and west campuses. Hunter college is in partnership with the Dormitory Authority of the State of New York (DASNY) and The City University of New York (CUNY). In Appendix Fig. 8 and 9, it shows pictures of the new escalators being installed in Hunter college. As a result, we believe this plan that will definitely benefit CCNY students, faculty and staff. Although some students may complain about the time it will take to replace all the escalators, it will be more efficient to wait for replacements rather than continuously fixing every broken escalator and turning them off to save electricity every day.

According to the Dormitory Authority of the State of New York (DASNY website), CCNY has planned five projects since 2012 in which some will be completed by 2020 as shown in Appendix Fig. 9. One of the CCNY projects that were mentioned on the website was the NAC central plant phase 2, which will cost approximately 31 million dollars. Therefore, we highly recommend installing the new escalators on both the north and south side because we believe this is more important than the central plant project.

The NAC building contains 18 escalators, each will cost between $4,000 and $8,500; depending on the size of each. In general, the cost of an escalator varies with floor height, size, and motor efficiency. According to Howmuchisit.org, the average cost for an escalator can range between $125,000 to over $325,000. The labor needed to complete our task will end up costing $100 per hour plus overtime. So, by calculations, if the height of each elevator is 30 feet, each elevator will cost around $120,000 to $255,000. Upgrading new escalators with high efficient motors will save our college both tons of money and energy. As Slate stated, escalators saves more energy than elevators because escalators can carry bigger groups of people at once. As opposed to elevators, they only carry limited groups of people at once. For example, if there are 50 people that need to go up a different floor, an elevator will only be able to carry 10 people at once, on the other hand, an escalator can carry more than 20 people in one trip.

According to ouc.bizenergyadvisor.com, an escalator consumes 45,000 kWh of power. The average power consumption in the United States is 11,500 kWh. The average potential power savings for escalators can range as high as 50% per device including saving from using LED lights. On the other hand, if CCNY maintained the unassembled escalators every time it stops functioning, it will end up costing more to maintain the old escalators than to install the new ones. Furthermore, installing a motor efficiency controller will also save our school both more money and energy because the new engines will have a greater capability to allow escalators to save more energy during start-up mode and in a slower-run mode.

Costs and Benefits:

Based on our calculations, installing all the new escalators will be completed within a year. If each escalator cost between $120,000 – $225,000, then we’ll end up with a total between $2,160,000 – $4,050,000. Furthermore, we assumed that 90 electrical engineers will be hired to work on the installation and wages will be around $100-$200 per hour. If each engineer works seven hours per day, each engineer will earn $700-$1,400 a day. If we further assume that 5 engineers work on each escalator, each escalator will cost $63,000-$126,000 in labor. Therefore, $63,000-$126,000 per escalator x 18 escalators x 30 days x 12 months = $22,680,000 – 45,360,000 in one year. If each high efficient motor costs $2,735, then, $2,735 x 18 escalators = $49,230.

We assumed that the escalators on campus are approximately 30 feet high, and each foot is around the range of $4,000 and $8,500. Therefore, our grand total will be within the range of $24,889,230 – $49,778,460.

SmarNuts members biography:

Aliaa Abdelrahman is a junior at the City College of New York (CCNY) majoring in computer science. In May 2019, she graduated from Borough of Manhattan CC with an Associate’s in computer science. Her favorite subjects are math and programming; she is also interested in doing a minor in graphic design because she thinks it relates to programming. Aliaa always has the passion to learn and obtain new skills; she is hoping to become a software engineer. In addition, Aliaa loves teaching and she is thinking to become a professor. She believes that she has excellent communication and interpersonal skills. She strongly believes she can make positive changes in others’ lives.

Constantino Bravo is a sophomore at CCNY currently majoring in mechanical engineering. He loves and respects mathematics and he believes that with his knowledge in maths, he can join the engineering field in order to work in the sports industry as a sports engineer and he currently hopes to one day work closely with big sporting brands such as Nike, Puma, and Adidas.

Sumi Moula is a transfer student from New York City College of Technology and a sophomore at CCNY. She hasn’t decided her major yet but she’s working towards the Computer Engineering path. She’s passionate about learning new skills. She’s multilingual. She can speak Bangla, Hindi, and Urdu.  In her spare time, she loves playing badminton and reading fiction books.

Yasiris Ortiz is a junior at the City College of New York, currently majoring in computer science. She is a transfer student from Bronx Community College where she completed her associate degree in computer science. She is passionate about programming and creating new technologies to help the world as well as becoming an educator in STEM majors. Yasiris’s favorite areas in computer science are software engineering, full-stack development, and cybersecurity. She enjoys learning new skills, working in teams, and doing volunteer jobs. Besides being a full-time student, she has a part-time job as a table tennis instructor in an elementary school in the Bronx. Here, she has been able to develop her leadership and enthusiasm for teaching and sharing her knowledge with others.

Conclusion:

            NAC building is one of the most important buildings of the CCNY campus. Students have to go to different floors for their classes and other purposes. When the escalators and elevators don’t work, it becomes really hard for the students to reach their classes on time. Moreover, if we think about students with disabilities it’s even harder for them to get in a class on time. Being late to class means missing the first few minutes of a lecture which means missing a lot of information. Everyone should be able to educate themselves without struggling physically. Therefore, all the escalators of the NAC building should be replaced by newly installed escalators. As we talked about how this problem affects students, faculty, and staff and how it will benefit us if the problem is solved.

Appendix:

 

Work Cited:

DASNY.ORG STAFF. Active Construction Projects. Reserved from https://www.dasny.org/our-clients/active-projects

East Building Escalator Replacement. Reserved from http://www.hunter.cuny.edu/facilities/recently-completed-projects/east-building-escalator-replacement

HOWMUCHISIT.ORG STAFF. (2018, August 9). How Much Does an Escalator Cost? Reserved from https://www.howmuchisit.org/escalator-cost/

Nina Shen Rastogi. (2010, August 10). Escalators vs. Elevators. Reserved from https://slate.com/technology/2010/08/how-much-energy-do-escalators-use.html

West Building Escalator Replacement. Reserved from http://www.hunter.cuny.edu/facilities/recently-completed-projects/68th-street-campus-escalator-renovation

(2018, January 3). Escalators and Moving. Walkway. Reserved from https://ouc.bizenergyadvisor.com/article/escalators-and-moving-walkways

Elevator and Escalator Consultant. Reserved from http://www.vtexcellence.com/articles/maintenancetasks.htm