Patent ID: 8297409

Claim:
A method for coordinating movement of a plurality of elevator cars in an elevator hoistway wherein the regions of the hoistway that are serviceable by the cars at any given time are configured to overlap, the method comprising: generating a car stop plan for each elevator car that includes a sequence of stops for servicing demand assigned to the elevator car; and coordinating operation of the elevator cars based on the car stop plans such that each elevator car services its assigned demand without interfering with the car stop plans of any other of the plurality of elevator cars; generating multiple hoistway plans that each combine the car stop plans for the plurality of elevator cars in a way that each elevator car services its assigned demand without interfering with the car stop plans of any other of the plurality of elevator cars; ranking each of the multiple hoistway plans based on predicted performance with regard to servicing the demand assigned to the plurality of elevator cars; and selecting a hoistway plan for execution based upon the ranking; and executing the selected hoistway plan.