Which floor is the lift on?

Source : Straits Times – 12 Oct 2009

SOME residents in Bedok North have complained about the newly retrofitted lifts in their HDB blocks.

They are vexed that the ‘upgraded’ lifts do not come with an electronic panel which tells them which floor the lift is at.

Such an indicator is within the lift and also in the ground-floor lobby, but residents waiting on all other floors have been unable to gauge how long the wait will be.

All they see is an arrow that lights up when the lift arrives on the floor they are at.

The lifts affected are in blocks 90 to 93, 94B to 94E, and 95 to 97 in Bedok North Street 4 and Avenue 4.

The old lifts in these blocks had the floor indicator, so the new ones are a climb-down for them.

They also said that without the floor indicators, they will not know if the lift has broken down.

The residents said they have gone to their town council and called the hotline for the lift upgrading project, but the town council and the project consultant said the matter has been referred to the Housing Board.

When contacted, the HDB said it was working with the lift companies to enhance the lift indicator system.

The lift upgrading for these 11 blocks is expected to be finished in the first quarter of 2011, but some new lifts in these blocks have been in use since June.

This problem is the latest to crop up in the lift upgrading programme. Elsewhere, residents have complained that the retrofitted external lift shafts have compromised ventilation, their privacy and the view from their flats.

The Straits Times spoke to at least 20 Bedok North residents about what most described as an inconvenient and user-unfriendly feature of their lifts.

Block 94D resident Patrick Tan called the lack of a floor indicator ‘ridiculous’.

The 55-year-old technician said he and his wife have taken to standing in the common area between the new lift and the old one ‘to see which lift comes first’.

To be fair, not all residents think the lack of a floor indicator panel is a problem. Ms Lindy Lim, a 26-year-old auditor who lives in Block93, said: ‘Whether or not we know where the lift is at, we still have to wait.’

But she added that it would be good to have breakdown indicators for lifts.

East Coast Town Council deputy general manager Teo Nam Meng confirmed that it had received complaints about the lifts and that the issue was raised with the HDB more than a month ago.

Ms Koh Yen Lin of SIPM Consultants, the project consultant, said the matter has been referred to the HDB, but declined to comment when asked whether the lifts were built to HDB specifications and whether it was cheaper to leave out floor indicators.

Lift company Fujitec Singapore, which was asked for its comments but is not the contractor for the project, said lifts without external floor indicators are only up to 5 per cent cheaper, but with upgraded lifts stopping on every floor, maintenance and replacement costs of indicator panels on all floors will add up over the years.

Fujitec’s director of operations, Mr Phuah Cheng Kok, noting that technology has made lifts reliable, said floor indicators are ‘not really a need-to-have, but a nice-to-have’.

He added that floor indicators are crucial only within the lift, so people know when to get off, and that arrival indicators can double as breakdown indicators.