“Our vision is for vertical mobility to become a more intelligent, connected and responsive part of India’s built environment. As rapid urbanisation drives taller and denser developments across residential, commercial, healthcare, aviation and transit, elevators and escalators will become increasingly central to how buildings and infrastructure function.”
1.TK Elevator has evolved from being an elevator and escalator manufacturer into a technology-driven provider of mobility solutions, with offerings spanning new installations, maintenance services, digital solutions, modernisation and connected mobility. How would you describe the biggest shift in the company’s approach to the Indian market in recent years?
As India’s built environment evolves, so has our approach to mobility. Rapid urbanisation and increasingly complex residential, commercial, healthcare and infrastructure developments have made vertical mobility an important part of how buildings function and people experience them. We have therefore adopted a more holistic, lifecycle approach from new installations and modernisation to service, connectivity and digital solutions with a focus on availability, efficiency and reliability throughout an asset’s life.
Connectivity is an important part of this transition. Technologies such as IoT, predictive maintenance and data-driven monitoring, including our MAX platform, provide greater visibility into equipment performance and enable proactive interventions that can reduce downtime by up to 50%. Alongside technology, we are strengthening our engineering capabilities, manufacturing footprint and nationwide service network to become a true mobility partner for customers.
2. In a hospital, an elevator is not simply a means of moving people between floors, it can become part of the clinical workflow itself. From TK Elevator India’s experience, when does vertical mobility become a critical operational system for a healthcare facility rather than simply another building service?
In a healthcare facility, vertical mobility becomes critical when the movement of patients, medical teams, equipment and supplies is directly connected to clinical services. Even delays in moving patients between critical areas can have operational and clinical implications. Elevators therefore need to be planned and designed around clinical workflows, with dedicated patient and bed elevators, separate service elevators, and adequate capacity for stretchers, trolleys and heavy carts.
Planning should also consider emergency routes, OT-to-ICU transfers, diagnostics, peak visiting hours and staff circulation. Features such as emergency prioritisation, touchless interfaces, antimicrobial surfaces and connected systems can further improve safety, hygiene and uptime. Ultimately, effective hospital mobility should seamlessly support the care continuum.
3. Connected elevator systems can generate continuous information about usage, performance and equipment health. How can hospital administrators turn this operational data into actionable intelligence, for example, identifying traffic patterns, optimising elevator availability or planning maintenance around critical hospital activities?
The value of connected mobility is not in collecting more data, but in turning it into decisions that improve operations. Real-time information on equipment status, usage and performance can help identify traffic patterns, periods of high demand and potential equipment issues, enabling administrators to optimise elevator availability and deployment.
Maintenance can also become more predictive, allowing interventions to be planned around hospital operations rather than waiting for failures. Platforms such as MAX bring together equipment data, remote monitoring and predictive insights, helping identify potential issues before they cause disruptions. Ultimately, the objective is to improve availability, reduce disruption and support continuous hospital operations.
4. Returning to healthcare infrastructure, hospitals place an unusual level of importance on uptime because vertical transportation can directly influence patient movement, emergency response and the flow of medical teams and equipment. What should hospital developers consider at the planning stage to ensure that vertical mobility supports clinical operations rather than becoming an operational bottleneck?
Vertical mobility should be considered part of the hospital’s operational architecture from the outset, rather than as an equipment decision towards the end of construction. Key considerations include segregating patient, public and service traffic; ensuring adequate capacity and redundancy; and planning critical routes such as emergency-to-OT and OT-to-ICU movement.
Equipment should be designed for continuous, heavy-duty use, while solutions such as AGILE can optimise traffic management. Connected systems and remote monitoring can support proactive maintenance. Developers should also consider serviceability and future modernisation, with early involvement of the elevator partner alongside architects, consultants and hospital operators.
6. The next generation of buildings will be increasingly connected, data-driven and designed around how people actually move through them. What is TK Elevator India’s larger vision for vertical mobility in this environment, and where do you see the most significant opportunities to redefine the role of elevators, escalators and digital mobility systems in India’s built environment?
Our vision is for vertical mobility to become a more intelligent, connected and responsive part of India’s built environment. As rapid urbanisation drives taller and denser developments across residential, commercial, healthcare, aviation and transit, elevators and escalators will become increasingly central to how buildings and infrastructure function.
The opportunity is to move beyond simply transporting people towards managing movement more intelligently. Connectivity, data and digital controls can help systems respond to real-time traffic and occupancy, improve availability, reduce waiting times, optimise energy use and support specialised workflows such as those in hospitals and airports. India’s strong digital capabilities, combined with our local manufacturing, engineering and sourcing, provide an opportunity to deploy intelligent mobility solutions at scale while maintaining global standards of quality, safety and sustainability.