How does an Escalator work?

- [Jared] As you ride up an escalator, you've seen this view plenty of times. But have you seen this view? or this view?

In today's video, I'd like to show you how an escalator works. (upbeat music) It's hard to imagine the modern world without the escalator. It was initially called the revolving stairs.

The first idea can be traced back to 1859. But it was a few more decades until we had our first working escalator. Since then society has come to heavily depend on these machines.

The escalator is most useful in places where there are large amounts of people to move such as airports, shopping malls and subway systems. Elevators can only move so many people even if there are several of them. But if the same space is used for escalators, we can move a lot more people through.

Of course there's usually an elevator nearby, for those that can't use the escalator. You'll usually find at least two escalators alongside each other. One going up and the other going down.

They can extend from multiple levels. Sometimes to save space, they'll be arranged in a crisscross pattern. But the layout will change depending on the needs of the place.

Some escalators might need to be longer or shorter depending on the height of the next floor. Maybe they'll need to be wider to fit more people, or several escalators might need to be right next to each other. Sometimes stairs are in the middle for those that want to walk.

And on some occasions, the escalators will all be pointed in the same direction. This helps when you want to direct the flow of traffic towards the exit. Let's not forget the variations such as the moving sidewalks or even the spiral escalators.

Yes, they really do have these. But for this video, let's take a look inside of a regular escalator. (upbeat music) There's a series of individual steps that make up the moving stairs.

They have ridges on the top and are sometimes made out of rubber so that they have better grip. The steps are painted yellow around the edge to encourage passengers not to stand too close to the edge. These steps stay flat while they're on top and it's a good thing to.

Each step has two wheels on the bottom to guide it as it moves along. Then we have what's called the step chain. This attaches to the top of each step.

Now all we need is a track system to guide these wheels. The step chain rolls along the top here and the bottom wheels roll along this track. The positioning of these tracks is what keeps the steps level.

Let's just focus on one of the steps as it comes down. You can see what would happened at this bottom wheel was just a little bit higher, the step would no longer be flat. Once we get to the end, the steps flip over and come around the other side.

The same thing happens once we get back to the top here. The escalator motor is usually up at the top, it has to move this axle and two big gears that pull the step chain. Now we just connect it with more gears and a roller chain.

(upbeat music) Now comes a few more gears. These are connected by another small chain underneath. This is what moves the handrail.

It's really important that the handrail move at the exact same speed as the steps. All of these parts are placed inside a strong metal frame which is called the truss. At the top and bottom of the escalator is what we call the comb plate.

The steps go right underneath as their ridges fit close together. If the ridges weren't there, it would be much easier for something to get stuck. But either way, just remember that it's never a good idea to play around an escalator.

My name is Jared and I love 3D animation. Hit that subscribe button if you want to see more videos just like this one.