Beijing completes checks on elevators, escalators

Beijing Municipal Administration of Quality and Technology Supervision (BMAQTS) has concluded safety inspections of the city's 188,000 elevators and escalators.

The inspection found 26.1 percent of these devices have been in service for over a decade and prone to malfunction. The BMAQTS has dangerous equipment repaired, monitored or taken out of service.

A BMAQTS official said risks are most severe in old apartment buildings, with the main problems being aging components and poor maintenance.

The city government has a system for dealing with elevators and escalators that are poorly maintained due to unclear ownership, with 110 million yuan (17.3 million U.S. dollars) spent between January and August. Almost five percent of elevators and escalators were found to have problems.

Beijing, with the second largest number of elevators and escalators in the world, conducts an annual safety checks. An extra risk evaluation check is applied to high-stakes devices, over 2,000 of which will undergo an extra check this year, including 1,200 in subways.

The number of elevators and escalators has increased by 20 percent every year and the trend is likely to continue. While the accident rate has actually declined thanks to the rising amount of new equipment, casualties have remained stable since 2003.

Of the 49 accidents last year, only eight were due to equipment failure. Poor maintenance is nonetheless a major issue partly due to price competition in the maintenance business, which has lowered the quality of service. Endit