General Suburban Updates and Rumours

[danbrotherston]

Magnetic?

These are very common where I live now, assuming they are the same thing, they are not a magnetic interface, but a mechanical one. The escalator (not steps, but a ramp) has a grooved surface and the cart wheels are narrow rubber disks, which slot into the grooves and stick with friction. It is pretty cool, albeit kinda annoying because you can't roll the cart, so everyone is stuck moving at the slow speed of the escalator. The teeth at the bottom of the escalator pop the wheels out when you get to the bottom.

It's electronic - the same system they use to disable carts leaving the property. I'd think the locking mechanism is passive and powered entirely from RF, but I'm not actually sure on that.

I'm not sure how they're powered, I wouldn't expect them to be passively powered, AFAIK they use an electric motor.

Which really brings to the main point...it would be incredibly stupid to use a system like that, using multiple active mechanical devices leaves tons of opportunity for failure...

And given there is a passive system that works perfectly, it would be a pretty big error to use something else.