This paper explores the use of pedestrian conveyor systems, otherwise known as moving walkways, in long public corridors such as those found in major commercial airports. The investigation includes a brief comparison of moving walkways with other primary modes of airport terminal passenger transportation and an empirical study of the use of moving walkways through analysis of passenger conveyors at the United Airlines Terminal at San Francisco International Airport. The empirical study investigates the physical characteristics of several conveyors and their locations within the airport terminal. The study also examines the passengers that traverse the corridors where the moving walkways are located. Characteristics of the passengers, along with their" mode choice" of transport along the corridor were recorded. With these data, a brief examination of current passenger use is made, with an emphasis on how travel speeds vary with each mode. In addition, implications are drawn concerning a passenger's mode choice, by means of two discrete choice Logit models. The paper briefly compares the findings from the empirical analysis with similar studies performed in Europe in the 1970s. The comparison determines improvements that have been made since the European studies. Finally, the paper draws some speculations as to how characteristics of passenger conveyors may be altered, in hopes of improving their services and ultimately increasing their niche in the pedestrian transport market.

First proposed over 100 years ago, the moving walkway, or motorized passenger conveyor, has been considered an innovative mode of pedestrian transportation. The first public operational moving platforms carrying pedestrians were found at entertainment complexes (such as the 1893 World's Colombian fair in Chicago) and were considered as novelty items. The first effort to implement a conveyor system solely for the purpose of serious passenger transport occurred in 1904, with a proposal to build a continuous moving walkway subway under 34th street in Manhattan, New York, but was never implemented successfully. Few such systems were actually operational in the United States before 1950, the most successful of them being Cleveland, Ohio's" Rolling Road," which transported pedestrians as well as horse and carriages from the lowlying warehouse district to the downtown, some 20 meters higher in elevation. Virtually all operational moving walkway systems were-defuµct by the early 1950s.