Standardization experts met in Frankfurt

Following New Delhi, the VDMA in Frankfurt was this time the location of the plenary meeting of the ISO/TC178 "Lifts, escalators and moving walkways".

It was the first meeting of the new chairman, Dr Gero Gschwendtner. He described the adoption of EN 81-20 and EN 81-50 in March 2019 as ISO 8100-1 and ISO 8100-2 as the highlight.

According to ISO regulations, the plenary meeting of the Technical Committee TC 178 "Lifts, escalators and moving walks" takes place every 18 months. Following the last plenary meeting in October 2017 in New Delhi/India, all ISO delegates met as planned in April 2019 on the premises of the VDMA in Frankfurt. The host and organiser was the DIN Mechanical Engineering Standard Committee, which is supported by the VDMA.

Fifty-five delegates from 22 countries took part in the two-day event, including participants from the USA, India, Malaysia, China and Australia as well as representatives from other associations, such as the ELA, PALEA and SBS.

Three TC178 working groups

This meeting was also the first for the new chairman, Dr Gero Gschwendtner (Austria), who succeeded the retired Christian de Mas Latrie (France). It was preceded by three-day meetings of the three TC178 working groups.

The ISO/TC178/WG4 working group examined the subject of safety requirements and risk evaluations. The ISO/TC178/WG6 working group met parallel to this. It dealt with special questions about lifts, such as standard dimensions, fire protection or traffic calculations.

The ISO/TC178/WG5 working group, which looked at escalators and moving walkways, was the last to meet. It continued the work on ISO/TR 14799-2 "Comparison of worldwide standards for escalators and moving walkways."

In addition, there are more active working groups in TC178, including:
• ISO/TC178/WG2: guide rails
• ISO/TC178/WG8: electric requirements for installations
• ISO/TC178/WG10: energy efficiency of lifts, escalators and moving walkways
• ISO/TC178/WG11: methods for improving safety in existing passenger and cargo lifts

In the last-mentioned working group, ISO/TC178/WG11, Dr Gerhard Schiffner from thyssenkrupp Elevator was confirmed by a resolution as chairman and Dieter Unger from the VDMA as secretary, to continue the work.

Results will be presented at the next plenary meeting

The highlight of the meeting was the announcement that EN 81-20 and EN 81-50 would be adopted in March 2019 as ISO 8100-1 and ISO 8100-2. "This is one of the biggest successes we've achieved with ISO 178 178," according to the chairman, Dr Gschwendtner. The ISO standards are to be published on 30 September 2019.

Among other things, in the coming months, the individual working groups will work on continuing to revise the standards and restructure the ISO standards. The results will finally be presented at the next plenary meeting, which takes place in 18 months. This will be staged in October 2020 by the Chinese standards organisation, SAC.

Dieter Unger/VDMA

www.iso.org/committee/53970.html

More pictures from the event in our photo gallery.