Operating less than all of multiple cars in a hoistway following communication failure between some or all cars

[0019]Referring to FIG. 1, a hoistway 10 serving a plurality of floors 11 of a building 12 includes a lower parking area 13 and an upper parking area 14. Within the shaft 10, three elevators A, B, C are moving upwardly and downwardly to provide service to passengers between the first and top floors 11 of the building 12.

[0020]In accordance with one embodiment of the invention, the middle car, B, is always selected to provide exclusive service in the event of failure of a first communication channel 17, either between the cars themselves or between the cars and a common controller 16, that assures separation of the cars, As shown, car A is always parked in the upper area 14 and car C is always parked in the lower area 13.

[0021]The embodiment of FIGS. 2 and 3 includes routines in a controller of car B with reference to communication control of car B, which may be reached such as at a routine entry point 20. In this embodiment, each car always first checks to see if some other car has ind