The Problem
York Racecourse is one of Europe’s finest racing venues. It regularly tops the list of favourite courses in polls and has even been voted Racecourse of the Year. It hosts three of the sport’s 36 Group 1 stages, the highest level of racing; the Nunthorpe Stakes, the Yorkshire Oaks and the renowned Juddmonte International Stakes – ranked number one of all UK thoroughbred races.
Over 350,000 people attend the course every year enjoying not only the fine quality of racing but also its fine levels of hospitality. Ensuring the smooth running of the site’s facilities, including its lift systems, is essential to maintaining the venue’s high standards.
To stay ahead of the curve and ensure optimum safety for visitors, the racecourse set out on a lift modernisation for its portfolio. To achieve this, they sought market leading solutions from MEMCO and its contracted lift maintenance firm The Elevator Company.
The Solution
The racecourses’ lifts, which were originally fitted with sounding alarms that were operated internally by the occupant to alert somebody in the vicinity if a problem was to occur, were enhanced with state-of-the art lift solutions to make the lifts safer and more efficient for both the maintenance team and the racegoers.
As the market leader in innovative lift engineering solutions, MEMCO was able to provide The Elevator Company with a complete integrated suite of products to help achieve the modernisation. Among the products supplied was its ground-breaking Digital Communication Platform (DCP), which was installed across 23 of York’s lift sites.
The DCP is a lift controller independent gateway which acts as a data highway between the lift and the outside world. The unit is installed in the machine room and when connected to MEMCO’s Digital Audio Unit in the lift car, the system provides reliable and robust emergency telephone communication.
The status of the emergency telephone system is monitored through the AVIRE HUB, a cloud-based system which can send and retrieve information to and from the DCP. Monitoring technical calls and background calls to ensure EN81-28 compliance are now quick and easy for The Elevator Company.
York also installed the AVIRE SIM card. This lift optimised, M2M, no-network bias communication chip mitigates common telecommunication issues such as unreliable network connectivity as the SIM will continuously roam for the strongest available signal, regardless of the operator.
The Result
Since the installation of the MEMCO products, the modernised lifts provide enhanced security features and reliable functionality for visitors. Maintenance has also become more efficient as they now have state-of-the-art technology as well as access to remote monitoring of all their lifts.
