According to the information released by online edition “20 minutes”, on the 27th of March a young man fell a victim to an incident — an elevator rope broke in one of the lifts of Vinnitsa city. This happened in one of hardware stores at approximately 7 p.m. A man of 31 years age wanted to transport the fridge in the service lift but the rope didn’t withstand the load and fell right into the pit. Thanks to on time first aid, he is alive; however currently he has to stay in the intensive care unit.

Journalists of “Lift Expert” magazine report that a man is seriously injured. Doctors have diagnosed traumatic brain injury, abdominal injury and fracture of the pelvis.

In the meantime territorial administration has created a special commission to investigate this case. Read our next issue to find out the details of this investigation.

According to data of “Interfax Ukraine” Dnepropetrovsk Metro administration plans to continue to build their main branch using the funds collected from European Reconstruction and Development Bank. Victor Sergeev, an Advisor to the Chairman of public administration in Dnepropetrovsk region has reported that building works will start in the second half. Currently metro administration holds a contest between local administrations to find the one that would take on this project. According to the plan, future contractors will be using modern technologies, shield tunneling in particular, that can speed up the run of tunnels. However, considering soil peculiarities, one of the enterprises that will definitely be involved in this project is going to be “Dneprometrostroy” which specializes in blasting.

“Lift Expert” with an editorial office in Dnepropetrovsk reports that this week 30 workers of “Dneprometrostroy” have picketed near the office of Regional Administration demanding their wages. During the last four months company’s debt has increased to 3 million hryvnia.

Dmitry Kolesnikov, a Chairman of Regional public administration, gave his colleagues instructions regarding searching for investors and obligees. In addition, he voiced a pledge of the Cabinet of Ukraine to give one billion hryvnia for satisfying debts of those companies which worked on public projects last year.  

A communal enterprise “Kharkovgorlift” has launched a pilot project of automatical system for condominiums. Engineers have spoken with journalists from local TV channels and told them about the novelties.

A new system is called “a smart staircase” and consists of numerous massive iron doors, modernized intercom, automatic dimmer and lift management system. All a resident has to do is to just bring his key to an intercom pivot. An external side of such intercom has got a screen that displays all important information. Electronic moving text can inform people about new tariffs, for example, repairing works and debts.

Petr Lazarenko, a designer of this system, pointed out that “a smart staircase” has got several useful functions. For example, when someone comes close to a door gate, a dimmer automatically comes up. People feel much more secure with this function working.  When there’s none near the gate, the light fades away. Energy savings is not the only advantage of “a smart staircase”. When one brings his or her key to the intercom pivot, simultaneously a lift goes down on the ground floor and a resident of the house doesn’t have to wait. Another great function of the system is a possibility to get in a building with a single mobile call. Now if you’ve lost or forgotten your key somewhere, you still can get back home.

Anatolii Kandaurov, a head of a communal enterprise “Kharkovgorlift” has reported that designers are working on functionality improvements of “a smart staircase”. They plan to produce individual keys and set the alarm system. In case of a gas leak it will automatically open emergency exits and trigger an alarm. A head of the enterprise emphasized on safety guarantees of such system. The prices for the system are not known yet. Local officers need to repeatedly test and approve this system before it actually can be put into operation.

Press-people of the Ukrainian TV-channel TSN have reported that in the last couple of days Kiev subway has been making incredible profits. Heavy snowfalls caused a number of problems on the road and made people change their usual mini-buses for sleds and snowmobiles. Those ones who can’t ski, use subways. As a result, every morning you can see long queues in front of subway gates. According to preliminary data, only during the last day more than 200,000 people used Kiev Metro (that’s twice as many people as originally used to travel by subway). Yesterday subway workers managed to make about 400,000 hryvnia. Administration of the subway issued an order to shorten time interval between each train. And yet, in order to get into the train, people had to miss 1–2 runs. It was not easy to get to the platform as well. People had to wait in long queues for about 20 minutes to get to the escalator. Fortunately, no damage is done despite big crowds on “Vokzalnaya”, “Kreschatik” and “Maydan Nezalezhnosti” stations. Sergey Tkachuk, a head of communal enterprise “Kiev Metro” has reported that subway workers decided to regulate people flaw and speed of escalator to avoid big crowds and throngs.

No one is ready to predict the consequences  of such overload. We can only hope that weather conditions are going to improve in the nearest future and all escalators are going to be tested.