Service Elevator vs. Freight Elevator: What’s the Difference?

by Michael Simmons, DBA, New Installation Sales

Do you ever watch movies and cringe when people mistakenly refer to service elevators as freight elevators? I can’t be the only one! Realistically, I realize that except for a few people outside of the elevator industry, most can’t tell them apart. That, my friends, is about to change!

The purpose of this article is to inform you, the reader, of the differences between service elevators and freight elevators. By the end of this article, you will be cringing along with me during movies and correcting your friends while riding the world’s most popular form of vertical transportation.

Before diving into the key differences between service and freight elevators, let’s understand our code. It is important to begin by noting that ASME 17.1-2019 — better known as Safety Code for Elevators and Escalators — only recognizes two types of elevators: passenger and freight.

Service elevators are simply passenger elevators that have been ruggedized to carry both passengers and freight. Service elevators must meet all the code requirements for passenger elevators as well as any applicable codes for the freight-loading intended for that elevator (Peele & Saxer, 2010). Now let’s take a closer look at the differences between service and freight elevators.

Service Elevators

If elevator code considers service elevators to be passenger elevators, we must first look at what makes a service elevator different from a standard passenger elevator.

The quickest way to visualize passenger vs. service is to imagine a hospital setting. Passenger elevators are, for the most part, slightly wider than they are deep. Service elevators, however, are much deeper than they are wide. Passenger elevators are designed to carry pedestrians while the service elevators are designed to carry hospital beds and stretchers.

Finally, passenger elevators are typically a little fancier on the inside with nicer finishes and a single handrail, while the Service Elevators may be fairly plain inside with rugged metal walls, perhaps even an additional set of bumper rails near the floor. Service elevators typically have a traditional side opening door which limits how wide the door can be and therefore also limiting the size of freight that can be loaded in the elevator.

Freight

I would be shunned by my fellow nerds in the Nerdery if I did not use the movie Aliens (1986) to plant a picture of a freight elevator in your minds. One of the most iconic scenes in movie history is when Sigourney Weaver rides the freight elevator down into the complex while preparing to single-handedly fight the titular aliens. The freight elevator she rides in has vertical opening doors which allow the door width to span the entire width of the elevator.

Freight elevators allow for much larger equipment such as forklifts or even entire vehicles to drive into an elevator. While the capacity of service elevators typically maxes out at 5000 lbs., freight elevators can often carry loads up to 100,000 lbs.! As such, freight elevators require different structural requirements due to the large amount of weight that they can carry. Additionally, freight elevator doors often require a separate electrical disconnect and controller while service elevator doors operate under the normal power of the elevator.

That concludes my brief description of differences between service elevators and freight elevators. Simply put, if you are a casual elevator rider in a typical business, residential or medical building, you are most likely using a passenger/service elevator. If you work in a factory or industrial setting — or fight xenomorphs for a living — you may be exposed to freight elevators.

To learn more about TK Elevator’s incredible portfolio of both passenger and freight elevators, please click here.

References:

Peele, H.E., & Saxer, A. (2010). Service and Freight Elevators. In Strakosch, G. R., & Caporale, B. (4th Ed.), The Vertical Transportation Handbook (pp. 347-380). John Wiley & Sons.