The escalator commandment might be wrong.

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The rule "stop right and walk left" is considered almost a commandment of civility in public transportation. Dating back to the beginning of the popularization of this method of transport in the early 20th century, it is almost universal in Western countries, with some regional differences in Asian countries like Japan, where the rule is the opposite. However, mathematics and physics can make you rethink this attitude, under certain conditions.

Recently, numerous academic discussions have been held with the aim of understanding people's mobility on escalators. And, with more and more people in urban centers, the need to optimize all available space is becoming increasingly important.

Some of the world's busiest subway systems already ask passengers to avoid using escalators for safety reasons. Others, however, have used mathematics and physics to rethink this unspoken rule of public transport. Data analysts Shivam Desai and Lukas Dobrovsky conducted a study on the London Underground and observed that passengers tend to stand still on the right, occupying one step and leaving another free, or on the left, walking and leaving three steps free.

A real-world test on the London Underground showed that, on escalators longer than 18 meters, people rarely walk on the left side. This allows the escalator's capacity to increase significantly if both sides are used with people simply standing still.

One of the leading experts on queuing, engineer Richard Charles Larson, director of an engineering center at MIT, commented on the study for the InsideScience website , noting that the math seemed to be correct, and added, "It could work if you limit the period in which this action is taken. It's similar to changing the direction of traffic on certain streets during rush hour."

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