How often is it that you are waiting for an elevator -- say to go up -- and the door opens and someone is still going down. When there is only a single shaft, it would be quicker to hop on, go down and then go straight up to your floor.
However, to do so means that you will have to stop at the floor you get on.
A simple solution to this would be to have a small button next to the elevator call button that allowed you to cancel the call. This would also assist if for some reason you pressed up when you wanted to go down or got interrupted and didn't want to take the elevator.
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There is a solution to this problem already, although it's not obvious: Always push the button opposite to the direction you intend to go.
Imagine you want to go up from the 3rd floor, so you push the down button.
1. If the elevator is on its way down, it will stop for you, and clear the button push, and not stop for you on the way back up.
2. If the elevator is on its way up, it will stop for you, and you get in. You're in control, and it will take you up to where you want. It will then return to the 3rd floor to take you down, but you won't be there, and that's not your problem.
Actually, why can't/don't elevator buttons simply have push on/push off behavior. Push it once, it lights up and the car will stop; push it again to cancel the request. The same behavior would apply to the buttons _inside_ the car. Push the wrong floor? Just push it again to cancel and push the right floor. Kids push all the buttons? Just push them all back off.
Knowing human mental inertia, I can imagine resistance to this idea, but it seems really straightforward and logical.
Just playing devil's advocate here for a moment. It's great if you can cancel your own actions or those of a hyperactive little kid, but what about when one jerk wants to cancel another person's (or persons') actions because he's in a "hurry"? Living in New York City, which has no shortage of the type of jerk of which I speak, this cancellation feature may lead to countless altercations and the occasional homicide. In other parts of the country where people tend to be more well-mannered and more considerate, however, it may work perfectly well.
I agree that people will unpress buttons. Change the simple buttons into fingerprint scanners. Then you may unpress *your* selection but not that of others. This won't help against kids that press the buttons and get out, but biometric sensors would take of that. For those that want to go to multiple floors and throw something "Who let you into the building anyway?! I'm calling security!"
poppamack says:"Always push the button opposite to the direction you intend to go"
Bad idea. All this does is piss people off. You must be used to old single-speed elevators. All modern elevators I've encountered ignore opposite direction calls.
In India, many elevators have an emergency-use "stop" button - that doubles up as the "cancel" button! If I wanted to cancel my own - or anyone else's - preset order, all I do is press "stop" - at which it lurches to a halt - and then press the button of my choice. Sounds sneaky, but in practice it's rarely if ever abused.
Useful also for when I press up when I mean to press down or vice versa!
They do that now, and it's a very handy feature. The elevator in the Shangrila Hotel -Pacific Place HK. Push twice to toggle off.