Glossary term
passenger lift
A lift designed and rated to carry people in a building, with landing doors, a car with doors, and a duty rating for continuous use.
What it means
A passenger lift is the everyday lift in an office, hospital, hotel or block of flats. It is built for repeated use all day, so its motor, doors and controller are rated for far more journeys than a home lift. It has doors on the car and at every landing, and it will only move when all of them are shut and locked. Its rated load is shown on a plate inside the car, in kilograms and in people.
Where you see it
Any workplace or public building with more than one floor is likely to have one. In residential blocks the passenger lift is often the only step-free route to a flat, which is why an out-of-service lift in a block is treated as an urgent matter rather than an inconvenience.
How it works
Traction is the usual arrangement: ropes or belts run over a driven sheave at the top, with the car on one side and a counterweight on the other. The counterweight balances most of the car, so the motor only has to move the difference. Hydraulic passenger lifts exist too, mostly in low-rise buildings, where a ram pushes the car up and controlled oil flow lets it down.
A passenger lift keeps a queue. The controller collects calls from the landings and from inside the car and serves them in an order that minimises travel, which is why the lift sometimes passes your floor going the other way. Modern controllers log every journey and every fault, so an engineer can read the history rather than guess at it.
Why it matters
Because passenger lifts carry the public, they sit squarely under the workplace lifting equipment rules. That means a written scheme of examination, a thorough examination at set intervals, and a duty holder who has to act on the report. Maintenance keeps it running; the examination checks that it is still safe.
Commonly confused with
A passenger lift is confused with a platform lift because both carry people. A passenger lift runs faster, has powered doors on the car and at each landing, and is rated for continuous use. A platform lift travels slowly, often needs continuous pressure on the control, and is meant for short rises.
Wear, service and lifespan
Passenger lifts do the most cycles of any lift type, so doors, controllers and drives take the load. A sensible regime pairs regular maintenance with recorded thorough examinations and a plan for modernisation around the point where controller or door spares become hard to buy.
Signs to watch for
- Doors reopen repeatedly instead of closing.
- The car stops out of level with the floor, leaving a trip step.
- Journeys are noisier or the ride has become rougher.
- The lift parks itself at one floor and stops answering calls.
- Passengers report being shut in, even briefly.
Troubleshooting passenger lift
Long waits at busy times
What it usually means: Traffic settings, or one lift of a group out of service
Safe check: Time the wait at peak and off-peak and note how many lifts are running.
The car overshoots or stops short of the floor
What it usually means: Levelling drift
Safe check: Note the floors and the rough distance, empty and loaded.
Doors reopen repeatedly in a busy lobby
What it usually means: Detector contamination from foot traffic
Safe check: Check the door edges for dust or damage and report the floor.
How to report it
Name the lift number in the group, the floors involved, and the time of day. Group faults often look random until the times are compared, and a few dated notes turn an unexplainable complaint into a solvable pattern.
Ask us about passenger lift on your lift
Tick anything you can see or hear from where you normally stand, add a note in your own words, and we will put it into the message below for you. Never open, force or enter any part of the lift to check.
0/800 characters. Please leave out personal details you would rather not email.
Get help by email
Tell us what your lift is doing
Send the make, model, error code and what the lift does now. We reply by email and point you to the right help.
Related terms
Definitions that usually come up alongside passenger lift when you are describing a fault.
- traction lift
A lift raised and lowered by friction between ropes or belts and a driven sheave, balanced by a counterweight on the other end.
Drive and machine
- landing door
The door in the wall at each floor, locked shut until a lift car is present and level behind it.
Doors and entrances
- thorough examination
An independent safety examination of lifting equipment carried out at set intervals and reported in writing.
Service and compliance
- entrapment
A passenger stuck in a lift car between floors or behind closed doors, released only by trained responders.
Safety devices
- lift
A powered machine that carries people or goods between fixed levels of a building, guided by rails and controlled from landings and from inside the car.
Lift types