Elevator in the context of Kone

A vehicle (from Latin vehiculum) is a machine designed for self-propulsion, usually to transport people, cargo, or both. The term "vehicle" typically refers to ground transport vehicles such as human-powered land vehicles (e.g. bicycles, tricycles, velomobiles), animal-powered transports (e.g. horse-drawn carriages/wagons, ox carts, dog sleds), motor vehicles (e.g. motorcycles, cars, trucks, buses, mobility scooters) and railed vehicles (trains, trams and monorails), but more broadly also includes cable transport (cable cars and elevators), watercraft (ships, boats and underwater vehicles), amphibious vehicles (e.g. screw-propelled vehicles, hovercraft, seaplanes), aircraft (airplanes, helicopters, gliders and aerostats) and space vehicles (spacecraft, spaceplanes and launch vehicles).

This article primarily concerns the more ubiquitous land vehicles, which can be broadly classified by the type of contact interface with the ground: wheels, tracks, rails or skis, as well as the non-contact technologies such as maglev. ISO 3833-1977 is the international standard for road vehicle types, terms and definitions.

A hoist is a device used for lifting or lowering a load by means of a drum or lift-wheel around which rope or chain wraps. It may be manually operated, electrically or pneumatically driven and may use chain, fiber or wire rope as its lifting medium. The most familiar form is an elevator, the car of which is raised and lowered by a hoist mechanism. Most hoists couple to their loads using a lifting hook. Today, there are a few governing bodies for the North American overhead hoist industry which include the Hoist Manufactures Institute, ASME, and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. HMI is a product counsel of the Material Handling Industry of America consisting of hoist manufacturers promoting safe use of their products.

A tower block, high-rise, apartment tower, residential tower, apartment block, block of flats, or office tower is a tall building, as opposed to a low-rise building and is defined differently in terms of height depending on the jurisdiction. It is used as a residential or office building, or has other functions, including hotel, retail, or with multiple purposes combined. Residential high-rise buildings are also known in some varieties of English, such as British English, as tower blocks and may be referred to as MDUs, standing for multi-dwelling units. A very tall high-rise building is referred to as a skyscraper.

High-rise buildings became possible to construct with the invention of the elevator (lift) and with less expensive, more abundant building materials. The materials used for the structural system of high-rise buildings are reinforced concrete and steel. Most North American–style skyscrapers have a steel frame, while residential blocks are usually constructed of concrete. There is no clear difference between a tower block and a skyscraper, although a building with forty or more stories and taller than 150 metres (490 ft) is generally considered a skyscraper.

A finite-state machine (FSM) or finite-state automaton (FSA, plural: automata), finite automaton, or simply a state machine, is a mathematical model of computation. It is an abstract machine that can be in exactly one of a finite number of states at any given time. The FSM can change from one state to another in response to some inputs; the change from one state to another is called a transition. An FSM is defined by a list of its states, its initial state, and the inputs that trigger each transition. Finite-state machines are of two types—deterministic finite-state machines and non-deterministic finite-state machines. For any non-deterministic finite-state machine, an equivalent deterministic one can be constructed.

The behavior of state machines can be observed in many devices in modern society that perform a predetermined sequence of actions depending on a sequence of events with which they are presented. Simple examples are vending machines, which dispense products when the proper combination of coins is deposited; elevators, whose sequence of stops is determined by the floors requested by riders; traffic lights, which change sequence when cars are waiting; and combination locks, which require the input of a sequence of numbers in the proper order.

A hydraulic fluid or hydraulic liquid is the medium by which power is transferred in hydraulic machinery. Common hydraulic fluids are based on mineral oil or water. Examples of equipment that might use hydraulic fluids are excavators and backhoes, hydraulic brakes, power steering systems, automatic transmissions, garbage trucks, aircraft flight control systems, lifts, and industrial machinery.

Hydraulic systems like the ones mentioned above will work most efficiently if the hydraulic fluid used has zero compressibility.

The earliest stage of skyscraper design encompasses buildings built between 1884 and 1945, predominantly in the American cities of New York and Chicago. Cities in the United States were traditionally made up of low-rise buildings, but significant economic growth after the American Civil War and increasingly intensive use of urban land encouraged the development of taller buildings beginning in the 1870s. Technological improvements enabled the construction of fireproofed iron-framed structures with deep foundations, equipped with new inventions such as the elevator and electric lighting. These made it both technically and commercially viable to build a new class of taller buildings, the first of which, Chicago's 138-foot (42 m) tall Home Insurance Building, opened in 1885. Their numbers grew rapidly, and by 1888 they were being labelled "skyscrapers".

Chicago initially led the way in skyscraper design, with many constructed in the center of its financial district during the late 1880s and early 1890s. Sometimes termed the products of the Chicago school of architecture, these skyscrapers attempted to balance aesthetic concerns with practical commercial design, producing large, square palazzo-styled buildings hosting shops and restaurants on the ground level and containing rentable offices on the upper floors. In contrast, New York's skyscrapers were frequently narrower towers which, more eclectic in style, were often criticized for their lack of elegance. In 1892, Chicago banned the construction of new skyscrapers taller than 150 feet (46 m), leaving the development of taller buildings to New York.

The Brussels Premetro (French: Prémétro de Bruxelles; Dutch: Brusselse premetro) is a network consisting of lines 4, 10, 7 and 25 of the Brussels Tram system. It is a standard-gauge system which runs in underground sections in the city centre and further out on surface lines. The network is operated by STIB/MIVB, the local public transport company.

The premetro tunnels have been built to allow for eventual upgrade to heavy metro, so most of the platform is high, and is connected to the street (at least in the upward direction) by escalator. At some stations, lifts have been installed, but there is a cutout section taking the level down to one foot above ground to board the trams. The three steps this entails make life difficult for passengers with baby buggies or suitcases, even though the new low-floor trams are accessible to wheelchair users.

A hydraulic cylinder (also called a linear hydraulic motor) is a mechanical actuator that is used to give a unidirectional force through a unidirectional stroke. It has many applications, notably in construction equipment (engineering vehicles), manufacturing machinery, elevators, and civil engineering. A hydraulic cylinder is a hydraulic actuator that provides linear motion when hydraulic energy is converted into mechanical movement. It can be likened to a muscle in that, when the hydraulic system of a machine is activated, the cylinder is responsible for providing the motion.

A counterweight is a weight that, by applying an opposite force, provides balance and stability of a mechanical system. The purpose of a counterweight is to make lifting the load faster and more efficient, which saves energy and causes less wear and tear on the lifting machine.

Counterweights are often used in traction lifts (elevators), cranes and funfair rides. In these applications, the expected load multiplied by the distance that load will be spaced from the central support (called the "tipping point") must be equal to the counterweight's mass times its distance from the tipping point in order to prevent over-balancing either side. This distance times mass is called the load moment.

An interlock is a feature that makes the state of two mechanisms or functions mutually dependent. It may consist of any electrical or mechanical devices, or systems. In most applications, an interlock is used to help prevent any damage to the machine or to the operator handling the machine. For example, elevators are equipped with an interlock that prevents the moving elevator from opening its doors and prevents the stationary elevator (with open doors) from moving.

Interlocks may include sophisticated elements such as curtains of infrared beams, photodetectors, simple switches, and locks. It can also be a computer containing an interlocking computer program with digital or analogue electronics.

An escalator is a moving staircase which carries people between floors of a building or structure. It consists of a motor-driven chain of individually linked steps on a track which cycle on a pair of tracks which keep the step tread horizontal.

Escalators are often used around the world in places where lifts would be impractical, or they can be used in conjunction with them. Principal areas of usage include department stores, shopping malls, airports, transit systems (railway/railroad stations), convention centers, hotels, arenas, stadiums and public buildings.

Skip-stop is a public transit service pattern which reduces travel times and increases capacity by having vehicles skip certain stops along a route. Originating in rapid transit systems, skip-stop may be also used in light rail and bus systems.

"Skip-stop" is also used to describe elevators that stop at alternating floors and hence also used to describe building designs that exploit this design and avoid corridors on alternating floors.

A traction motor is an electric motor used for propulsion of a vehicle, such as locomotives, electric or hydrogen vehicles, or electric multiple unit trains.

Traction motors are used in electrically powered railway vehicles (electric multiple units) and other electric vehicles including electric milk floats, trolleybuses, elevators, roller coasters, and conveyor systems, as well as vehicles with electrical transmission systems (diesel–electric locomotives, electric hybrid vehicles), and battery electric vehicles.

A lobby is a room in a building used for entry from the outside, sometimes referred to as a foyer, entryway, reception area or entrance hall. It is often a large room or complex of rooms (in a theatre, opera house, concert hall, showroom, cinema, etc.) adjacent to the auditorium. It may be a repose area for spectators, especially used before performance and during intermissions, but also as a place of celebrations or festivities after performance. In other buildings, such as office buildings or condominiums, lobbies can function as gathering spaces between the entrance and elevators to other floors.

Since the mid-1980s, there has been a growing trend to think of lobbies as more than just ways to get from the door to the elevator but instead as social spaces and places of commerce. Some research has even been done to develop scales to measure lobby atmosphere to improve hotel lobby design. Many office buildings, condominiums, hotels and skyscrapers go to great lengths to decorate their lobbies to create the right impression and convey an image.