Here is a new twist on the humble escalator
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Architects and developers are queuing up for a chance to install the Levytator
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The moving staircase which can glide round corners
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After being forced to go in just two directions, up and down, for more than a century, escalators are finally getting a little freedom.
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A newly invented moving staircase will be able to twist, bend, spiral and even snake around sharp corners.
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The Levytator – named for its inventor, Jack Levy, professor of mechanical engineering at London's City University – consists of curved modules like those used in sushi restaurant conveyor belts.
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A YouTube film showing a working model went viral following its release, scoring almost 250,000 hits.
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Among those it has attracted are architects and developers keen to put it into new buildings.
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Sweeping Levytator arcs could appear in shopping centres and public buildings in as little as 18 months, said David Chan, of City University.
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A science museum could even turn its escalators into a DNA-like double helix, the university suggested.
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One private finance company said the invention had clinched crucial funding for a still-secret property development worth several hundred million pounds.
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The question now is whether to buy 16 or 32 of them," said Tony Clark of Bond Asian Ventures (UK).
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Professor Levy said he got the idea after a lifetime travelling on the London Underground.
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I wondered why all the escalators had to be straight, he said.
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Sometimes it's really convenient to go round a corner.
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In conventional escalators, the steps are turned upside down and looped underneath the staircase to take them back to the start.
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So an "up" escalator and a "down" escalator would have two separate loops, typically costing £100,000 each.
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But in the Levytator, when the steps reach the top, they turn left or right under the floor until they get to the start of the down flight, forming a single closed loop.
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This means that fewer steps are required, reducing the cost.
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And since maintenance can all be done from above, it won't take weeks or months to rebuild them.
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Traditional escalators developed topsy-turvy, but we're starting with a clean sheet of paper, said Professor Levy.
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However, if one side has a fault, both have to be taken out of service and they can't run in the same direction.
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He believes the Levytator will be safer than other models since it won't have a gap between the stairs and the walls into which people and things can become jammed, he said.
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Worldwide, there are 10,000 accidents on escalators every year, including several deaths.
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On two occasions I've seen people piling up at the bottom of an escalator and had to press the emergency stop button.
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The first working escalators were invented in the US in 1896, and the first in Britain was installed at Harrods in Knightsbridge in 1898.
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By Paul Rodgers
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