> In Japan it's not uncommon to have someone exit the elevator and just as they exit, press the close button so the door will close immediately behind them. This is a "sorry I interrupted your time by having to stop the elevator" gesture. This wouldn't work in the USA because the light sensors would trigger the doors reopening.

Sounds annoying. If I see an elevator stop at a floor then I'd like a chance to actually get on it, instead of having my time wasted by a futile gesture that might save someone a second or two.

You don't think that before doing this gesture, the individual would check if there were people waiting to get on the elevator?

Hardly seems like it'd save any time if they would.

They're walking out, it will be clear if someone is there and take no additional time.

It doesn't take any time, you just see if there's people outside or not when the doors open.

I never saw anyone do this in Japan. Because you can slide out before the doors are fully open, in this case people in elevator can close the doors earlier. If you wait for them to fully open and close them yourself then its wasting time.

I haven't seen this either, but the only building I'm particularly familiar with used 2 story elevators (board at 1 or 2, arrive at 17 or 18), so I'm guessing the close door button isn't going to do much (the elevator on the lower level has to deal with the loading conditions of the upper level, and vice-versa).

In the USA close door button is generally gated behind the firefighter's emergency operation key being activated from what I understand?

I don't think this is the case. Maybe it's a placebo button in some cases? But I've definitely ridden in elevators where the "close door" button has nearly immediate effect (usually older ones). The button never overrides the safety bumpers that reopen the doors, they just bring about the natural closing sooner.

Elevators have a “manual mode”. This is mandatory by law to exist for firefighters/emergency workers, but can be used for other purposes (eg when moving into a high rise apartment, you reserve the elevator for a few hours to move furniture), in commercial buildings sometimes the cleaning staff will use it to hold the elevator and their equipment on their floor as they go floor by floor.

Manual mode does override the sensor that checks if something is in the way, but doesn’t override the pressure sensor that responds if the door hits something when closing. You usually have to hold the close button while it beeps to close the door.

The buttons exist for manual mode. If they work elsewhere, that’s lucky. When I lived in a high rise, it took ~20s for my elevator doors to close. If you were the last one in, you might hit the button and see the doors close immediately, but only because of you timed it right, not because the button did anything during day to day usage. I’ve timed it, and my Otis elevator didn’t close faster due to the button.

The “open door” button obviously works most places.

The elevator of my building does seem to respond to close but it’s not super instant. It’s common for the people left in the elevator to press the close button which theoretically should work.

My office close button works. But then you’re standing in a closed elevator going nowhere. Hitting the floor button also closes the door. This is for a stopped/open elevator.

Once it’s moving with several floors selected, the open and close buttons don’t seem to do anything.

One reason door close buttons don’t work is because many places have a minimum time the doors have to remain open under ADA guidelines.

Once that time has passed, the door close. So there is no window in which the button would be useful.

I worked in a building once where the close door button started a 3ish second timer then would close. As a side effect if the door was close to closing already it would sometimes actually lengthen the time the door was open. Drove me nuts when people would come in late and hit the button.

Bad programmers are all around us. It could have been fixed with a min() call

In Seoul's subway stations, elevators usually take forever to close, like long enough to make you think "Geez if I just walked I would be on the other floor by now!"

And that's exactly the reason, i.e., to shoo away those with a good pair of legs, because otherwise people who do need elevators might end up waiting forever.

But even elevators in skyscrapers usually take forever to close, and nobody expects you to walk up stairs to the 50th floor just because you have a good pair of legs.

Elevators in skyscrapers use lots of the energy. Guess the owner wants to save some energy?

That seems like a prodigious waste of everyone's time. In Japan, from what I've experienced, when there are not many people, you can get the door to close immediately after you get in, and it starts moving very soon after that. Imagine all the productive hours lost because of this.

Hours? Seriously

It might only be a few minutes a day, but when applied on millions of people using elevators every single day, it adds up.

It does not create productive hours. One person can achieve quite a lot with additional 2 hours. 120 different people with 1 additional minute wont achieve anything of value in that one minute.

> many places have a minimum time the doors have to remain open under ADA guidelines.

What's the logic behind requiring this to happen every time? Why not just have a handicap button like doors do, and letting the elevator stay efficient the rest of the time?

How would a handicap person hit that button?

The same way they do when they hit the handicap buttons that open doors to buildings.

Elevators should have lower buttons for the handicapped

"All handicapped people are in a wheel chair"

Complain to the government then.

"Car Control Height. Maximum height for control buttons and mechanisms is 54 inches (1370 mm). Minimum height is 35 inches (890 mm)."

https://www.ada-compliance.com/ada-compliance/ada-elevators....

"No because that's government regulations and they are all bad"

Yeah. there is a minimum dwell time, and the door close button will never close the door sooner than that on modern code compliant elevators in normal operating mode.

It is possible that there will be a default dwell time that is larger than the minimum, in which case the pressing the door close button would shorten the window to the minimum, but most elevators won't do that as the minimum is long enough already.

Similarly the door close button may have effect when the door open period was extended, such as by the door sensors, or pushing the door open button to prevent door closing, but the exact details will vary.

In other operating modes, especially firefighter mode, but also some maintenance modes, and some modes that expect a dedicated elevator operator (who can ensure the door remains open long enough for disabled people if present), the door close buttons do absolutely do have an impact, and can violate the normal dwell time rules.

In the USA 99% of people press the "close door" button immediately upon entering, without looking whether someone else is currently headed to the same elevator. It makes sense to disable a button that people can't use politely.

How do you know they don't just do it because they're used to the door not closing immediately?

Does it matter in a situation, where you don't want to close the door immediately?

They are, and it doesn't. I don't understand your point.

They press the close door button because they know they have the time to turn around, notice someone else entering and press the open door button.