20 / 24
| PEOPLE FLOW
20
T
he Makkah Clock Royal Tower
hotel rises above everything
else in the city of Mecca in
Saudi arabia. at 601 meters
and 120 floors, the glisten-
ing steel-and-concrete clock tower is the
biggest building in the world, and ranks
second in height only to the Burj khalifa
in dubai in the neighboring united arab
emirates. The structure’s seven towers
rest upon a 15-story retail podium, and
the three towers on either side of the
clock tower reach between 200 and 300
meters into the sky.
at peak times the hotel, which faces
the world’s biggest mosque, the Masjid
al-haram or Grand Mosque, provides
accommodation and recreation for
up to 75,000 visitors at a time – that’s
equal to the capacity of the olympic
Stadium in Berlin, Germany. all of these
thousands of people leave their rooms
on various floors of the Makkah Clock
Royal Tower hotel within 30 minutes
or less for prayer five times per day. For
koNe, supplying a comprehensive solu-
tion for this megatall high-rise has been
one of its most impressive undertakings
and serves as a prestigious calling card,
further strengthening its position in the
Middle east high-rise market.
Facilitating the movement
oF people
koNe was contracted to supply
elevators and escalators for the
building’s podium in 2002. in 2008,
after making numerous calculations to
establish the best possible solutions to
serve the building’s unique and massive
flows of people, the company received
an order to supply equipment for the
clock tower itself. altogether, koNe has
delivered more than 300 elevators and
escalators for the entire complex.
koNe pulled top-notch experts from
across the company to work side-by-
side with the contractor and building
owner, the Saudi Binladin Group (SBG),
to ensure elevator and escalator capacity
and placement were optimal for
enabling a smooth exit and re-entry for
building visitors.
“we conducted a thorough people
flow analysis to learn and track possible
passenger traffic patterns,” says
tarek
elnaggar
, Senior Vice President at
koNe who was the regional director
for koNe Middle east during the
project. “By doing so, we delivered an
extraordinary amount of equipment,
including 94 elevators and 16 escalators
for the clock tower.”
koNe iN The Middle eaST
koNe established its regional head-
quarters in dubai in 1993, and has
become the leading supplier of eleva-
tors and escalators in the Middle east,
employing nearly 2,000 people across
Saudi arabia, the united arab emirates,
Qatar, oman and Bahrain. it serves
a further 10 countries in the region
through its network of joint-ventures
and authorized distributors. koNe has
about 750 employees in Saudi arabia
where it operates through the koNe-
areeco ltd joint-venture.
koNe worked closely with the
architects and contractors in the pre-
planning stages, calculating traffic
capacity to assess crowd behavior
and patterns of movement. allocation
of sufficient escalators, elevators,
and dedicated routes minimizes
congestion and the risks related to
moving such large crowds through
the complex.
The elevators ascend to the summit
of the clock tower in stages, one set
rising as high as the 86th floor while
another set whisks passengers up to
the top floors, including luxurious
hotel apartments and an astronomical