I’ll admit to being mildly obsessed by the issue of optimising the performance of lifts in skyscrapers.
There are obvious analogies with scheduling a railway. In order to have the freedom to run express, long-distance lifts, today’s invention is to incorporate some ‘sidings’ in which slower lifts can pause and park, temporarily out of the way.
This would work best in systems where the lifts are attached to the outside of a building. The length of the sidings need be only a very small fraction of the overall height. Rather than use cables, I envisage some kind of geared, funicular arrangement, capable of diverting the cars laterally in safety.
There could then be a processor devoted to scheduling the car movements in near-realtime so that express transits would be given priority for the shortest possible periods.
…since lifts in skyscappers can take up to 15% ( I heard once ) of the volume of the building ( and noone is paying rent for this space ) making efficient use of the space ( by using multiple lifts in one shaft ) would be very valuable.