GENETIC ALGORITHM FOR CONTROLLERS IN ELEVATOR GROUPS: ANALYSIS AND SIMULATION DURING LUNCHPEAK TRAFFIC P. Cortés 1† , J. Larrañeta 1 and L.Onieva 1 1 Seville University Ingeniería Organización. Escuela Superior Ingenieros, Camino de los Descubrimientos s/n. Sevilla 41092. SPAIN Tel. +34 95 448 72 05 Fax +34 95 448 73 29 † E-mail: pca@esi.us.es † URL: http://io.us.es/P.Cortes/main.htm Abstract.- A genetic algorithm (GAHCA) is proposed to control elevator groups of professional buildings. The genetic algorithm is compared with the universal controller algorithm in industry applications. In other to do so an ARENA simulation scenario has been generated during heavy lunchpeak traffic conditions. The results allow us to affirm that our genetic algorithm reaches a better performance attending to the system waiting times than traditional duplex algorithms. Keywords.- vertical traffic, genetic algorithm, elevator, controller, simulation, lunchpeak. 1. INTRODUCTION The progressive price increase in the urban centres of the larger cities makes the necessary intensive ground exploitation by means of the construction of high buildings. Today the installation of synchronized elevator groups in professional use buildings (offices, hospitals or hotels) is an usual practice. The elevator system research is quite recent and has followed the technology development. The late eighties and the nineties decade can be considered as the start point of the industrial investigation, especially in USA and Japan ([1], [2] and [3]). After that the research experimented the impulse of the largest multinational companies ([4], [5], [6] and [7]). By the end of the nineties the research in vertical transportation was a reality and the collaborations among the private companies and the research centres were reinforced, some examples are the Systems Analysis Laboratory in the Helsinki University of Technology with the KONE Corporation [8], the Konrad-Zuse- Zentrum für Informationstechnik of Berlin [9] or the Seville University with MAC PUAR, S.A. [10]. In elevator systems the use of the system waiting time is the priority objective to attain an efficient system performance, at the same time as having a bounded maximum waiting time. The system waiting time includes the waiting time for the lift in the hall plus the trip time inside the lift. Also, other secondary criteria are used as the queue sizes or the system energetic consumption.