On April 10, four elevator-sharing projects were under construction in the residential area of Fengning sub-district in Kunming. The projects, which are installed by enterprises free of charge and residents pay to use it on a monthly or annual basis, is the first time that Yunnan has adopted a rental model to install an external elevator.

With the emergence of shared bicycles and shared cars in various cities in recent years, "shared elevators" have gradually emerged. Especially for Kunming, where there are many old communities and residential areas, there is a huge market demand.

The residential area of Fengning sub-district has 24 units, with 7 floors each building and no elevators. More than 300 households are retired people, of which more than half are over 65 years old. For them, installing an elevator is a necessity. After a number of surveys and safety assessments, a total of 16 units in the living area meet the elevator installation conditions. Currently, four elevators are installed on a pilot basis.

The elevator-sharing model can solve the problem of insufficient funds on one hand, but it can also alleviate neighborhood disputes caused by the sharing fees of elevator maintenance on the other hand. For residents, they are more concerned about the cost of use. According to Liu Yuanyao, a relevant person in charge, there is no use fee for people living on the first floor. The fees for each use of the second and third floors are initially set at 0.2 yuan, the fourth and fifth floors are 0.25 yuan, and the sixth and seventh are 0.3 yuan. Residents can apply for monthly card and annual card, the maximum cost will not exceed 800 yuan a year.

The noise for each elevator can be as low as 30 decibels, and the outside is glass which will allow reach room to be well lighted. No use fee will be charged during the trial run. After that, residents can pay by fingerprint, face recognition and QR code scanning, in addition card payment.

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(Editors: Christine, Alison)