Wide Why are the lifts in my Dubai building so slow?
In most existing towers the lift machinery is not the problem. The control logic is. Conventional lifts answer calls in the order buttons are pressed, with no idea how many people are waiting or already inside, so cars stop for calls they cannot take, bunch together at peak times and run half-empty when it matters.
Slow lifts are a real problem in Dubai
Long lift queues are not just a feeling. In August 2024 Khaleej Times reported that residents in some Dubai buildings were losing up to 30 minutes waiting for an elevator, naming towers in Barsha Heights and Business Bay and complaints from Al Barsha, Deira and Bur Dubai. For residents it means late starts and frustration. For owners and developers it means complaints, lower satisfaction and pressure to spend millions on new lifts.
The five usual causes
- More people than the building was designed for. Occupancy often grows after handover, and the lift system was sized for the original assumptions.
- Sharp peaks. Morning departures, the school run and lunchtime create surges that a fixed control program handles badly.
- Full cars stopping for calls they cannot serve. A car that is already full still stops at every floor where someone pressed the button, adding minutes to every journey.
- Cars out of service. Planned maintenance or faults take a car away and the remaining cars cannot absorb the demand.
- Control systems with no view of real demand. Most controllers only know which buttons were pressed, not how many people are waiting or how full each car is.
What good looks like
For office buildings, widely used design guidance targets an average interval between lifts of about 20 to 30 seconds and an average lunchtime waiting time of around 25 seconds (Designing Buildings Wiki, citing a survey of office lifts). Residential buildings are usually designed to less demanding targets, so agree the right benchmark with your lift consultant before judging your building. The important step is to measure your own waiting times first; our guide on how to measure lift waiting times explains how.
Your options to fix slow lifts
There are four broad routes, from most to least disruptive:
- Replace the lift system with new machines and controllers. This is the most expensive and slowest route.
- Upgrade components such as engines or cabins. This is still costly and takes lifts out of service for months.
- Add destination dispatch, where passengers choose their floor before boarding.
- Retrofit intelligence to the existing system, such as SES, which leaves your lifts in place and changes how they are controlled.
We compare the costs in lift modernisation cost in the UAE vs an AI retrofit, and the technologies in destination dispatch vs AI lift control.
How SES makes existing lifts faster
SES, the Smart Elevator System built by Wide CS, uses cameras and AI to see how many people are waiting in each lobby and how full each car is. A retrofitted command module then tells your existing lift controller how to operate, in real time. After a two to four week learning period, Wide CS projects have seen lift efficiency improve by 20 to 50 percent. Installation takes about one working day per lift, and SES is already live in a Damac Developers building in Dubai.
A checklist for building managers
- Log complaints with the date, time and floor, so you can see when the problem peaks.
- Ask your elevator service provider for traffic and fault data from the controller.
- Measure real waiting times at peak hours for at least a week.
- Check how many cars are out of service, and how often.
- Compare the results with an agreed benchmark before deciding to replace anything.