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Why does an escalator handrail move faster than the stairs? Our latest video, ad-free!
🕑 Added 2025-09-12 06:29:29 +0000 UTCThe surprising science of escalators.
Many thanks to all of you who contributed to the work in progress for helping us get this over the line. Enjoy!
Comments
Rick Freas
I was recently at the airport in Barcelona where to my surprise what I thought was an escalator turned out to be a continuous elevator. Easier for suitcases but definitely stretched your calf muscles! Do you know if suitcases are the reason they went with this solution?
Russell Sibley
This is a fabulous doc—important lessons here far beyond escalators or even technology per se. Really well done.
Patrick W. Gilmore
You didn't mention the spiral escalator. Supposedly an engineering marvel?
Patrick W. Gilmore
Except they frequently run slower. Or maybe those are just escalators which are not properly maintained and need a new friction wheel?
Chris Mullin
NIce story, but I was left wondering how many accidents DO occur across all these millions of escalators? How weak is the "must be maintained" link (i.e., the human part) of the chain?
Kevin Walters
Normally I would have watched this and enjoyed it. Because three days ago there was a request for comment on patreon I had thought about it a lot more and realised there are a few small parts of this that are misleading and it doesn't answer the critical question of the motivation/reason for disabling parts of the mechanical system and electronic control system related to safety. I'm not sure why you request comments if you are not going to act on important ones and I'd expect a much deeper production pipeline, e.g. 30+ days before publication to allow for edits/reshoots/etc.
Rich
Really enjoyed this one
Gregor Shapiro
The handrail moves slightly faster than the steps so that if you do hold on to it your feet won't be pulled ahead of your upper body causing you to loose your balance and fall backwards while on the escalator.
