Elevator Communication for Transit and Rail

A transit elevator is a public elevator in the hardest sense. It never closes, it is inspected constantly, it is used by people who do not know the building, and it cannot be taken out of service because the communication system needs work. 96 MTA stations completed as of 2025 is what that looks like when it goes right.

What transit asks for that other buildings do not

The work happens on a station that stays open

There is no maintenance window where the station closes. Every installation on the list below went into a station serving passengers, scheduled around service rather than around us. Where the car operating panel can be opened, the standard EAV unit installs into it. Where it cannot, the surface mount version installs without touching the COP.

The caller cannot tell you where they are, so the system tells you instead

Someone presses the call button in a stopped elevator and the operator asks where they are. On a transit system the passenger usually cannot answer usefully. They know roughly which station, maybe which platform. Every elevator is named individually in the platform, and the call arrives already identified with its location shown on a map, so the operator knows which car in which station before the passenger finishes the first sentence.

Know the phone works before anyone needs it

Emergency Communication Path Supervision, or ECPS. Verifying elevator phones used to mean sending someone to every car to press the call button and wait for an answer. Across a network this size that is weeks of work, done infrequently, and it only proves the phone worked at the moment somebody stood in front of it.

LiftComm supervises the communication path automatically. Every elevator, every 30 seconds. If a path fails you get an alert immediately, not at the next inspection and not when a passenger is already stuck in the car.

Elevator calls and 911 in the same platform

Where configured for PSAP operation, the platform can support elevator emergency calls and 911 within the same answering environment rather than through two disconnected processes. A call can be answered, assessed and escalated without the passenger being transferred or dropped between systems.

One platform for every emergency point

Elevator phones are rarely the only emergency communication on a transit system. Help points on platforms, assistance points at fare gates, call boxes in parking structures. These are often separate systems with separate answering arrangements. They can be consolidated onto one platform, so one team answers and monitors all of them.

Why the record starts in 2019

ASME A17.1-2019 introduced a new generation of emergency communication requirements, including provisions addressing passengers who cannot communicate by voice. Where the 2019 or later requirements have been adopted by the applicable jurisdiction, voice-only communication is no longer sufficient for affected installations.

What goes in

The MTA network runs most of the LiftComm line, across 96 stations, on the subway, the Long Island Rail Road and Staten Island. A station is not one phone. It is the phone in the car, the landing intercom, the answering point, and the PBX behind it.

EAV Elevator Phone SeriesSecurity Desk Phone & Fire Command PhoneCall Center Agent PanelElevator Landing IntercomOn-Premise PBX & Emergency Elevator Call SystemArea of Refuge Phone

The stations

96 MTA stations completed as of 2025, most recent first. Where two years are shown, LiftComm has completed separate work at that station on more than one occasion.