Patent 7487861 was granted and assigned to Otis Elevator Company on February, 2009 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
An elevator system includes a plurality of cars (22-30) that are capable of serving a plurality of floors (2-17). A controller (42) groups the floors into a plurality of sectors (S1-S4). The controller (42) assigns a particular car to a particular sector. The sectors include at least one sector that has at least one floor that is not contiguous with the other floors in that sector.