The owner of the lift/escalator and the last service contractor who carried out any maintenance or repair work on the lift, must each report all lift and escalator incidents to the Commissioner as soon as practicable (via phone and follow up with an incident report within 24 hours). The lift or escalator owner will have to assess if there is a need to shut down the lift or escalator.
This is stated under Regulation 14 of the Building Maintenance and Strata Management (Lift, Escalator and Building Maintenance) Regulations 2016.
List of lift incidents
The lift incidents that need to be reported include:
| Incident |
Examples that could indicate a lift incident |
Technical causes |
| Injury or death involving a lift, or any associated equipment or machinery of a lift |
- All cases involving death
- All cases involving injury which requires the attention of medical professional eg. when ambulances are activated
- All cases that require first aid
|
N/A |
| Failure of main drive system (other than that due to failure of main power system) |
Lift car moves in an uncontrolled manner. For example:
- Lift car over-travelling to or beyond highest or lowest floors
- Lift building speeds up continuously before an abrupt stop upon impact
- Lift car travelling above its normal speed or at risk of being so
|
- Broken traction machine gear worm / wheel shaft
- Broken coupling bush bolts which couple the motor to gear
- Broken traction machine drive sheave and shaft
- Suspension rope dislodgement
|
| Breakage of suspension rope |
- Abnormal noise due to falling object on car top, lift pit or striking against lift car
- Abnormal entanglement of wire ropes
- Lift car plunges suddenly
|
Breakage of any suspension rope |
| Failure of brake |
Lift car will ascend or plunge suddenly in an uncontrolled manner |
Brake fails to engage when it is supposed to |
| Failure of overload device |
- Lift car is able to operate normally even when it is overloaded ie. carrying a load higher than the “maximum load capacity” indicated inside the lift car
- Further overloading may cause the lift car to plunge
|
Malfunction or failure of overload detection mechanism |
| Failure of other safety components/equipment |
N/A. This is usually only detected by inspection, testing or both |
Examples of failure of other safety components / equipment:
- Governor / tensioning device:
- Failure to detect over-speed condition (beyond the tripping specifications as defined by the manufacture / code)
- Buffer:
- Dislodged or damaged buffer
- Missing parts or component
- Failure to slow down the lift car / counterweight (as per code requirement)
- Ascending car overspeed protection:
- Failure to detect, slow down and stop an up-travel overspeed lift
- Unintended car movement protection:
- Failure to detect, slow down and stop a lift car which is moving at the lift landing when its doors are not fully closed
|
| Failure of interlocking device for any lift landing door (other than safety contacts not making electrical contact) |
- Lift landing doors can be opened without unlocking the doors when the lift car is not at the same floor
- Lift car can continue to operate or move when the landing doors are not closed and locked
|
Interlocking device for lift landing door fails |
| Failure of interlocking device for any lift car door (other than safety contacts not making electrical contact) |
Lift car can continue to operate or move even when the car doors are not closed and locked |
Interlocking device for the lift car door fails |
List of escalator incidents
The escalator incidents that need to be reported include:
| Incident |
Examples that could indicate an escalator incident |
Technical causes |
| Injury or death involving an escalator, or any associated equipment or machinery of an escalator |
- All cases involving death
- All cases involving injury which requires the attention of medical professional eg. when ambulances are activated
- All cases that require first aid
|
N/A |
| Failure of main drive system (other than that due to failure of main power system) |
Escalator moves in an uncontrolled manner. For example:
- Escalators riding up that suddenly reverse direction
- Escalator travelling at abnormal speed
|
- Broken traction machine gear worm / wheel shaft
- Loss of coupling between motor, gearbox and main drive
|
| |
- Tilting, flipping or collapse of escalator step(s) while travelling
- Damaged step(s)
|
Broken step chain / step chain roller/ step roller / step axle or relevant parts |
| Failure of brake |
N/A. This is usually only detected by inspection, testing or both. |
Brake fails to slow down within prescribed stopping distance |
| Failure of overload device |
N/A. This is usually only detected by inspection, testing or both. |
Incorrect protection threshold eg. upsizing of electric drive without adjusting overload protection accordingly |
| Failure of other safety components/equipment |
- Stoppage of handrail movement
- Other situations are usually only detected by inspection, testing or both
|
- Failure of safety components/equipment eg. failure of interlocking switch, speed monitoring device etc.
- Failure of function of safety components as intended due to incorrect configuration, incorrect setting, misalignment, disabling or bypassed electrically etc. Examples include:
- Bridging or bypassing of safety switches or safety circuit
- Tying of emergency brake
- Excessive threshold of detection
|