Group-Aware Estimation of Elevator Trip Origin DestinationMatrices: Exact Recovery and a Cohesion Threshold

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.26713/cma.v17i3.3683

Keywords:

elevator group control,, origin destination matrix, combinotorial optimization

Abstract

Recovering the trip origin-destination (OD) matrix of an elevator group from sensor data
is an ill-posed inverse problem: the boarding and alighting margins that sensors report do
not determine which origin a given alighting passenger came from. Standard estimators close
the system with a maximum-entropy (passenger-independence) prior; however, field studies
show that passengers travel in social groups, contradicting the assumption of independence.
We reformulate the problem at the group level and propose a batch-aware estimator that
assigns each group to a single primary destination, thereby matching the observed margins.
Because such a method risks being judged only on data that satisfy its own assumptions,
we study instead when it helps. We introduce a cohesion parameter ρ that controls how
strongly groups travel together and an equally informed control that separates the value of
the method from the value of the group information. We prove an exact-recovery theorem
in the cohesive limit and a closed-form law for the model-mismatch error, and show this
law implies a cohesion threshold above which the method helps and below which it does
not. Simulations, an agent-based generator in which cohesion is not imposed, and a closedloop dispatch study agree: the batch-aware estimator improves accuracy and lowers dispatch
energy and journey time when groups are sufficiently cohesive, traffic is inter-floor-dominated
and not saturated, and group sizes are sensed accurately; otherwise, a margin-only estimator
is preferable. The result is a method, its supporting theory, and a calibratable decision rule
for its use

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Author Biographies

  • Ritu Khanna

    Professor, Department of Mathematics, Pacific Academy of Higher Education and Research University

  • Saurabh Mehta

    Professor, Vidyalankar Institute of Technology,Mumbai

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Published

September 30, 2026

Issue

Section

Research Article

How to Cite

Ansari, N., Khanna, R., & Mehta, S. (2026). Group-Aware Estimation of Elevator Trip Origin DestinationMatrices: Exact Recovery and a Cohesion Threshold. Communications in Mathematics and Applications, 17(3). https://doi.org/10.26713/cma.v17i3.3683