Platform Lift Technology and it’s History

Are platform lifts safe and when did they become popular?

Platform lifts are indeed safe to use. Screw-driven platform lifts with enclosed shafts has been in the market since the 1980’s and the demand is still growing.

By doing a quick research you can see that many lift companies started their businesses in the 1980’s. One of the reasons could be due to the non-discrimination laws and accessibility regulations that was implemented by the EU and particularly by Sweden and Norway during this time. In one of J. Tøssebro articles from 2016 he explained that the regulations did also seem to have impacted the awareness and the general image of users and usability. Because of these regulations we can nowadays see elevators, escalators and lifts in every public building.

At the same time the aging population is increasing rapidly every year. United Nations (UN) mentioned in their World Population Aging report from last year (2019) that the global population aged from 65 year and above has increased from 6 % in 1990 to 9% in 2019. These numbers has been projected to rise further to 16 percent in 2050, which in turn means that one in six people worldwide will be aged 65 years or over in that time.

By having these numbers in our mind we could only assume that we will be seeing much more platform lifts in the future.

Sources: http://www.epsa.eu.com/customers_users/about_platform_lifts/the_history_of_european_lifting_platforms

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1875067216300049

https://www.un.org/en/development/desa/population/publications/pdf/ageing/WorldPopulationAgeing2019-Report.pdf