Don\'t think it will cut the power in half. Moving conveyor material around a turn will increase drag.
Also I think the single person upper entrance/exit would cause traffic problems in a high volume area

Where\'s the big innovation? You see this kind system at the baggage claim at virtually every airport in the world!

The article says \"Levy predicts that a fully-loaded Levytator with the maximum number of passengers traveling up and down would use around 80 percent of the power of two traditional escalators making the same trips. Meanwhile, a half-loaded Levytator with the down path full and the up path empty would use half the energy of the two equivalent escalators.\"
The energy halving would be when there is nobody going up but lots of people going down. Makes sense. With a bit of engineering, it should be possible to create a \"regenerative energy harvesting function\" when say at a sports event, all the people coming down the \"stairs\" would be charging batteries, or pumping water to a great height so that that can be used when the next time somebody goes up. Just like regenerative braking on electric vehicles harvests energy.
I don\'t ever recall see a baggage moving system which works in three dimensions. They\'re usually flat.

I see exactly the same information, even the same video and pictures for at least a year, probably more. Just the information about possible power saving is new, but this is very logical as the same principe is used for centuries in mining elevators. So there is probably some bigger downside of this levytator when it is not yet replaced all existing escalators - i guess - price?
P.S.: why the steps are so tall? IMO they would need only about 1.5 to 2× of step height, so about 40cm, but on the picture it seems like 5× or so (1m). Saving the height so weight and dimensions needed would make it even more power saving and fitting in more places.

Conventional escalators can be set so all the paths move in one direction useful when filling a stadium or evacuating a burning building. On the other hand letting firemen ride to the burning floor cant be all bad.

@drakesword - made any calculations about it? They probably did, so they probably know what they're talking about. If you see the video at 0:50 there's way more ascending and descending movement than turning and there's no "single person entrance", because "The Levytator was primarily developed to give architects the ability to create escalators in ANY SHAPE they want"
@Laprivan of the Yellow Eyes - "I don't ever recall see a baggage moving system which works in three dimensions. They're usually flat", Joe Blake
@Tom Kapler - about the steps size? It's a model
How can you people keep talking about these innovations on this kind of website being such a short minded? Do something useful instead...

The crescent-shaped edges required will never meet any building code. There are always specific requirements for tread \"depth\".
Fixed spiral or winding staircases are only allowed in the US now with a 6-8\" minimum depth at the narrowest edge of the tread - no more coming to a point, or even near that.
And yes, I am a builder.
Forrest

Too many commenters have \'shot from the hip\' before checking it out completely proving that it is too easy to say something critical and be wrong. Tread depth appears to be within minimum depth full width because the treads are not complete ellipses and the curves allowed are not extreme enough to require that much narrowing.
However it may be that this escalator needs to be narrow enough that most passengers can grasp both handrails, which could preclude the passing width common on American escalators.

Creating energy savings by any means possible is a part of the solution and deserves the consideration of even building codes if we are going to make a difference.

Who was it who said \"I like escalators.... when they break down they become stairs\".