VT Planner Zoning and Transfers Guide

Zoning changes which cars serve which floors. It can reduce unnecessary travel for each car group, but it also changes passenger paths, queue locations, and the set of origin-destination pairs that can be served.

In VT Planner, zoning is configured in the elevator setup's service model.

Full Group Service

If no manual zones are defined, VT Planner uses full group service:

• every elevator belongs to the same service group;
• every served non-lobby floor is available to the group;
• passengers travel directly between origin and destination when the traffic model generates the trip.

Full group service is the baseline for most first studies.

Manual Zoning

Manual zoning divides cars and floors into zones. A valid manual zoning setup must:

• assign every elevator exactly once;
• give each zone at least one elevator;
• cover every served non-lobby floor;
• avoid duplicate car assignment;
• reference only floors that exist in the saved building.

Cars are exclusive to one zone. Floors can be shared by more than one zone when the operating model requires common service, transfer service, or an overlap. The main lobby, floor 0, is treated as a common service floor for zones. This allows a low zone and a high zone to both connect to the lobby when configured correctly.

Transfer Floors

A Transfer floor is a floor where passengers can change from one zone to another. VT Planner validates transfer floors before the setup can be used.

A transfer floor must:

• be inside the served building range;
• be served by at least two zones;
• create a valid first leg and second leg for interzonal passenger trips.

VT Planner resolves itineraries as direct trips or trips with one intermediate transfer floor. If a concept requires multiple sequential transfers, treat it as outside this modeling approach before relying on the result.

For example, a building can have:

If a passenger needs to travel from floor 4 to floor 15, no single zone serves both floors. With floor 0 as a valid transfer floor, VT Planner can split the trip into:

1. 4 -> 0
2. 0 -> 15

How Simulation Handles Transfers

Simulation uses passenger itineraries. A passenger may have one direct leg or multiple legs.

When a passenger reaches a transfer floor:

• the passenger alights from the first car;
• the completed leg is recorded;
• the passenger becomes waiting again at the transfer floor;
• the next leg is queued as a new service need;
• final waiting, transit, and journey times include the whole itinerary.

This matters because transfer zoning can increase journey time even when each zone works well on its own.

Zoning and destination dispatch can improve capacity in some traffic conditions, but they can also change waiting and journey time. A transfer design should therefore be reviewed as a passenger experience problem, not only as a car assignment problem.

Active Traffic Pattern Matters

VT Planner validates zoning against the active traffic model because different patterns create different origin-destination pairs.

An Up-peak zoning plan may be serviceable because every trip starts at an entrance. The same zones can fail under Interfloor if low-floor to high-floor trips have no direct zone and no valid transfer floor.

If VT Planner reports an unserviceable trip, review:

• whether every occupied floor is covered;
• whether a shared transfer floor exists;
• whether the transfer floor is served by both relevant zones;
• whether the active traffic pattern can generate trips the zoning was not designed to serve.

Calculation Limitations

Analytical calculation supports full group service and simple zoning, but it does not model passenger transfer itineraries.

Simple Up-peak and Down-peak calculations are intended for normal group checks with the default lobby entrance and one dominant direction. In this simple analytical path, floor 0 can be present as the shared lobby connector for zoned groups. That does not mean the calculation is modeling transfer waiting; it is still a simple zoned sizing check.

If the zoning case also includes multiple entrances, basement entrance demand, or a mixed traffic assumption, switch the calculation method to General analysis, but remove Transfer floors. General analysis can include simple zoning because it can distribute analytical demand across the served floors and entrances for that setup. It still cannot represent a passenger who rides one zone, alights at a transfer floor, waits again, and boards another zone.

Non-lobby transfer floors, and any case where transfer waiting is part of the question, belong in Simulation.

If Calculation shows a compatibility warning about transfer floors, either:

• remove transfer floors and run an analytical calculation for the simple zoning case;
• keep only the lobby connector when using a simple Up-peak or Down-peak zoned calculation; or
• switch to Simulation to evaluate the transfer behavior.

Use General analysis for analytical cases with multiple entrances, basement entrance demand, or mixed shares. Use Simulation when non-lobby transfers, destination dispatch behavior, stochastic queues, or passenger path behavior are part of the design question.

Practical Checklist

1. Start with full group service for a baseline.
2. Create manual zones only when there is an operational reason.
3. Assign every elevator exactly once.
4. Cover every served non-lobby floor.
5. Use non-lobby transfer floors only when passengers should be able to change zones in simulation.
6. Confirm that the active traffic pattern does not generate unserviceable trips.
7. Compare zoned results using journey time and percentiles, not only interval.