ISO Plenary Meeting

VT experts come together in Paris to refine codes and standards at the 32nd ISO/TC 178.

by Dr. Gero Gschwendtner

On April 18-19, the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) Plenary Meeting, chaired by your author, took place in Paris at AFNOR Group’s headquarters. After two virtual plenary sessions, this was the first physical meeting since the 2019 plenary session in Frankfurt, Germany, where elevator, escalator and moving walk experts came together in one place.

To start, your author warmly welcomed all delegates and declared the 32nd Plenary Meeting of ISO/Technical Committee (TC) 178 open. He underlined the importance of meeting again face-to-face after two virtual plenary meetings since the one in Frankfurt. He observed that sharing information one on one, along with having additional conversations with colleagues throughout the event, resulted in a “swarm of intelligence” with the group collaborating to improve the world of lifts and escalators.

Based on ISO, many different countries cooperate by participating and together finding consensus-based solutions.

This continues, as adoption of ISO standards for lifts and escalators leads to creating a globally harmonized way to design lifts, escalators and moving walks with equivalent levels of safety, together with the adoption of common or mutually recognized rules for product certification. The process benefits all stakeholders who design, manufacture and use lifts, escalators and moving walks. It also benefits society at large, in terms of quality, safety, accessibility, sustainability, energy savings and cost reduction.

A total of 67 people registered for the plenary meeting, with 51 attending in Paris and 16 joining virtually. They represented 22 countries and four liaison organizations. As usual, the chairman welcomed by name those attending the meeting for the first time. Your author also expressed his sincere thanks to AFNOR for hosting the meeting and the ISO/TC 178 Working Groups (WG) WG4, WG5, WG6 and WG9 for their excellent organization.

He also expressed his sincere thanks to the French Lift Association (Fédération des Ascenseurs) for inviting all delegates to a social dinner. By hosting such an event, the association demonstrated its leadership and hospitality while confirming its position as a key player in the global lift industry. Taking place at the end of the first day, the well-attended dinner was held at a traditional restaurant in the center of Paris. It gave experts the opportunity to come together in a relaxed atmosphere outside of an office setting. Additional information exchange occurred here, along with the camaraderie that is essential for building a safer and a better environment for stakeholders worldwide.

After this, Jean-Michel Remy, head of the Construction and Water-Cycle Department at AFNOR Standardization, gave a short welcome speech to all delegates on behalf of AFNOR, wishing them a successful meeting.

Then, Eva Contival, ISO/TC 178 committee manager, conducted delegate rollcall, with the following countries represented: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, China, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, India, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Malaysia, Malta, Namibia, the Netherlands, Russia, Singapore, Sweden, Switzerland, the U.K. and the U.S. She then presented the ISO Code for Ethics and Conduct, which includes the official rules and guidelines for ethical behavior during ISO meetings. The Code is an obligation for participation in ISO committees and their subgroups that work within the framework of the ISO/IEC Directives.

There are currently 32 participating countries and 26 observing countries within ISO/TC 178, and this is continually growing.

With his keynote presentation, your author then launched the technical part of the meeting. After explaining ISO structure and its work in 2023/2024, he shared key data about the continually growing lift and escalator industry. All in all, he observed, it is a very attractive industry. After this, he provided an overview of ISO/TC 178 organization, membership, series of standards and market drivers. There are currently 32 participating countries and 26 observing countries within ISO/TC 178, and this is continually growing.

ISO/TC 178 currently has 10 active WGs, where WG12 “Cybersecurity” was founded in 2019, and AHG “New Technologies” (founded in 2019) was transferred to WG13 in 2022. WG1 “Lifts on Ships” and WG9 “Measurement of Ride Quality” were reactivated in 2022. Also in 2022, WG2 “Guide Rails” was disbanded with the publication of ISO 8100-33 “Lifts for the Transport of Persons and Goods — Part 33: T-Type Guide Rails for Lift Cars and Counterweights.” When a revision of this standard is needed, this WG will be reactivated.

ISO/TC 178 is responsible for 43 published documents, which include 25 standards, seven technical specifications and 11 technical reports. Before the plenary meeting, 14 documents had been under development and 21 projects initiated.

Finally, United Nations (UN) sustainability goals and the connection to ISO (a highlight of the presentation) were explained. ISO fully supports these goals, and your author went into detail about the correlation between ISO TC 178 standards and corresponding UN sustainability goals. In addition, he explained that, on the homepage of ISO/TC 178 (iso.org/committee/53970.html), where all standards and technical specification/reports are listed, detailed relationships to individual UN sustainability goals are also described.

Afterward, Contival presented the secretariat report, including a summary overview of work progress since the last plenary meeting. Existing liaisons, as well as results of the last periodical reviews, were explored.

Following this, Dr. Anna Caterina Rossi, ISO technical program manager, presented a complete report on important ISO matters and new ISO directives that are updated every year.

Then, a review of all WGs got underway. WG1 “Lifts on Ships” was re-activated in 2023 for the revision of ISO 8383:1985, as was decided after a systematic review. The standard will be renumbered ISO 8100-8 “Lifts for the Transport of Persons and Goods — Part 8: Specific Requirements for Lifts on Ships.” The new convenor of WG1, Ari Ketonen, reported on the matter, for which a Preliminary Work Item (PWI) has been registered.

On WG4 “Safety Requirements and Risk Assessment,” David McColl reported. He explained the ongoing work of ISO 14798-1 and ISO Technical Report (TR) 14798-2, ISO/TS 8100-22/23 and about ISO 8100-1 “Safety Rules for the Construction and Installation of Lifts — Lifts for the Transport of Persons and Goods — Part 1: Safety Requirements for Passenger and Goods/Passenger Lifts” and ISO 8100-2 “Safety Rules for the Construction and Installation of Lifts — Lifts for the Transport of Persons and Goods — Part 2: Design Rules, Calculations, Examinations and Tests of Lift Components,” where a revision is being done under the Vienna Agreement (the agreement on technical cooperation between ISO and the European Committee for Standardization (CEN) and CEN/TC 10.) The CEN enquiry/draft international standard (DIS) vote had just concluded, and a considerable number of comments were received. For the next several months, addressing all comments represented a huge workload for CEN/TC 10 WG1. However, the objective remains to finalize both standards for formal vote by the end of 2024 and publish them in the second quarter of 2025.

For ISO 8100-20 (formerly ISO 22559-1) “Safety Requirements for Lifts (Elevators) — Part 1: Global Essential Safety Requirements (GESRs),” it was decided that this standard needs an update. Therefore, a PWI will be registered to revise the standard.

Convenor of WG5 “Escalators and Moving Walks” Edip Kaci reported on the status of the roadmap for a new prescriptive standard on escalators and moving walks, in which ISO 8103-1 “Escalators and Moving Walks — Part 1: Safety Requirements” will be released as an identical adoption of the technical content of EN 115-1:2017. This standard was voted on and has been approved by 100% of voting members. It is now to be forwarded for publication.

Next, Ketonen presented the work of WG6 — “Lift Installation.” This WG is responsible for many standards, hence, it also has several sub-groups. Among many other things discussed in this group, two items shall be noted here:

1. ISO 8100-7 (ISO 4190-5) “Lifts for the Transport of Persons and Goods — Part 7: Accessibility to Lifts for Persons Including Persons With Disability,” where it had been decided that this standard will also be an adoption of EN 81-70 and that a DIS vote has started. It was also agreed that it go directly to publication after the DIS vote. The next revision of this standard will then be done with CEN, under the Vienna Agreement.
2. For ISO 8100-32 (ISO 4190-6) “Lifts for the Transportation of Persons and Goods — Part 32: Planning and Selection of Passenger Lifts to be Installed in Offices, Hotels and Residential Buildings,” it has been decided to develop a new TR to provide guidance on how to use this standard and how to adapt it to different environments.

Vince Robibero, convenor of WG8 — “Electrical Requirements,” in his report shared plans for the revision of ISO 8102-1 (ISO 22199) “Electromagnetic Compatibility With Regard to Emissions” and ISO 8102-2 (ISO 22200) and “Electromagnetic Compatibility With Regard to Immunity.” To start this project, CEN TC 10 will collaborate with ISO under the Vienna Agreement.

Tricia Derwinski, the newly appointed convenor of WG9 — “Measurement of Lift and Escalator Ride Quality,” showed the first results of her work. WG9 has been re-activated in 2023 for the revision of ISO 8103-9:2022 “Escalators and Moving Walks — Part 9: Measurement of Ride Quality,” and a New Work Item (NWI) was approved in December 2023.

For WG10 “Energy Efficiency,” the convenor, Roger Beuret, spoke about plans to revise EN ISO 25745-2 “Energy Performance of Lifts, Escalators and Moving Walks — Part 2: Energy Calculation and Classification for Lifts (Elevators),” where it was decided in the plenary meeting to launch a systematic review to collect input for the revision.

Eberhard Vogler, convenor of WG11 “Methodology for the Improvement of Safety of Existing Passenger and Goods/Passenger Lifts,” reported on the progress of work on ISO NP 8104-1, where it was also decided to update the title to “Improvement of Safety and Accessibility on Existing Lifts, Escalators and Moving Walks: Improvement of Safety on Existing Passenger and Goods/Passenger Lifts” and where a ballot for the registration of a NWI had just been approved.

Ari Kattainen, convenor of WG12 “Cybersecurity,” explained in his presentation the need to revise ISO 8102-20:2022 “Electrical Requirements for Lifts, Escalators and Moving Walks — Part 20: Cybersecurity.” Based on this, a resolution for the revision of this standard has been approved to ensure that it can be used to meet relevant EU regulation, which requires enhancing cybersecurity requirements to a state-of-the-art level. This work will be done under the Vienna Agreement to become EN ISO 8102-20 under an ISO lead, and a NWI will be registered for starting this project.

In addition, Kattainen reported on progress on the new document ISO TS 8102-21 “Electrical Requirements for Lifts, Escalators and Moving Walks — Part 21: On-Site and Off-Site Software Updates,” which covers means for software updates including parameter updates for lifts, escalators and moving walks. Reaching the DIS stage is anticipated by the end of 2024.

Kari Suihkonen, convenor of WG13 “New Technologies,” reported on the new project ISO/TS 8100-10 “Lifts for the Transport of Persons and Goods — Part 10: Building Information Modelling,” for which publication is scheduled at the end of 2025.

As at the last plenary meeting, WG13 was mandated to investigate new topics in the field of new technologies that would be of interest for future standardization work. There was also detailed and intense discussion about the outcome of this work. As this is a very important topic, WG13 will continue this work, but already at this plenary meeting it was decided that WG13 — given that there is a growing need for software-based integration between lifts and other building systems — will start a new project for the development of a new technical specification on interoperability.

Finally, the next meetings have been scheduled. An intermediate phone conference between the chair, secretariat and convenors of the WGs following up on work progress will be organized in January 2025 following the next plenary meeting.

ISO/TC 178 gratefully accepts the proposal from the Standardization Administration of China to host ISO/TC 178 and its WGs for its plenary meeting in October 2025, with the meeting to be held on October 30-31, 2025. WG4, WG5, WG6 and WG9 meetings are scheduled on October 27-29, 2025.

The meeting was then closed by your author, who thanked all participants for their cooperation and contributions to the plenary meeting. He appreciates the WGs’ efforts. He also thanked the convener, the drafting committee and AFNOR for hosting the meeting.