Project ELEVAC | Transforming Campus Mobility.
Rerouting human traffic in busy universities and resolving physical infrastructure bottlenecks through real-time transparency and behavioural nudges.
Project Overview
The problem wasn't the elevators. It was the behavior around them.
Ground-level observation: not surveys, not interviews, actual counting revealed that nearly 60% of elevator users in the building were traveling fewer than five floors. High-capacity lifts designed for long-distance vertical movement were being consumed by micro-trips, creating peak-hour gridlock that couldn't be solved by adding more hardware. The infrastructure wasn't undersized. It was being used in a way nobody had explicitly designed for, and nobody had bothered to measure.
My role as PRODUCT DESIGNER
Research on stair-versus-elevator choice consistently shows that the primary driver isn't distance or effort, it's information. When people don't know how long they'll wait, they default to the elevator regardless of the floor. When wait time is visible and the staircase is framed as the faster option, behavior shifts measurably. Published behavioral interventions in university settings have demonstrated statistically significant increases in stair usage through targeted point-of-decision prompts alone, without any physical modifications to the building.
ELEVAC operationalizes that insight at the system level. Real-time occupancy and wait-time data eliminates the uncertainty that drives reflexive elevator use. Mobile-first incentives target lower-floor users specifically. The 60% generating the bottleneck, nudging them toward stairs by making the trade-off explicit and immediate. The intervention is entirely digital. No construction, no infrastructure cost, no architectural modification.
A physical infrastructure crisis, resolved through behavioral design and information transparency. The building didn't need to change. The feedback loop did.
Building for reality, not just the canvas.
© 2026 Designed & Documented by Akash Mounabhargav. All Rights Reserved.
Project ELEVAC | Transforming Campus Mobility.
Rerouting human traffic in busy universities and resolving physical infrastructure bottlenecks through real-time transparency and behavioural nudges.
Project Overview
The problem wasn't the elevators. It was the behavior around them.
Ground-level observation: not surveys, not interviews, actual counting revealed that nearly 60% of elevator users in the building were traveling fewer than five floors. High-capacity lifts designed for long-distance vertical movement were being consumed by micro-trips, creating peak-hour gridlock that couldn't be solved by adding more hardware. The infrastructure wasn't undersized. It was being used in a way nobody had explicitly designed for, and nobody had bothered to measure.
My role as PRODUCT DESIGNER
Research on stair-versus-elevator choice consistently shows that the primary driver isn't distance or effort, it's information. When people don't know how long they'll wait, they default to the elevator regardless of the floor. When wait time is visible and the staircase is framed as the faster option, behavior shifts measurably. Published behavioral interventions in university settings have demonstrated statistically significant increases in stair usage through targeted point-of-decision prompts alone, without any physical modifications to the building.
ELEVAC operationalizes that insight at the system level. Real-time occupancy and wait-time data eliminates the uncertainty that drives reflexive elevator use. Mobile-first incentives target lower-floor users specifically. The 60% generating the bottleneck, nudging them toward stairs by making the trade-off explicit and immediate. The intervention is entirely digital. No construction, no infrastructure cost, no architectural modification.
A physical infrastructure crisis, resolved through behavioral design and information transparency. The building didn't need to change. The feedback loop did.
Building for reality, not just the canvas.
© 2026 Designed & Documented by Akash Mounabhargav. All Rights Reserved.
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