Assessment of Elevator Risks and Code Requirements Associated With Slip, Trip and Fall Hazards

Abstract

Abstract In previous work, the hazards associated with elevator door closures were identified and analyzed. Using the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System (NEISS) database of the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), incidents associated with door strikes were identified between the years 1990 to 2017. This current effort focuses on elevator slip, trip and fall hazards. The ASME A17.1 Safety Code for Elevators and Escalators requires that elevator systems be equipped with leveling devices to vertically align the car platform sill relative to the hoistway landing sill to attain a predetermined accuracy. Even with the leveling safety requirements, slip, trip and fall incidents for passengers exiting or entering elevators are known to occur. This paper will analyze elevator slip, trip and fall hazards using injury records from the NEISS database from 1990 to 2019. Relevant elevator incidents were extracted from this dataset through manual inspection of the text-based description fields of all elevator-related incident records found in the NEISS dataset from this time period. National projections of elevator incidents were then calculated from this extracted dataset and trended for the entire time period of 1990 through 2019. The age and sex distributions of these national projections were also analyzed. These projections and trends are then discussed in the context of ASME A17.1 requirements intended to mitigate the risks of injuries when entering or exiting an elevator.