This is the entrance to the lift between Liverpool Street mainline station and Liverpool Street tube station. It's a rubbish lift, being unreliable, slow and much too small for its key location at Britain's busiest railway station.
Someone's now tried to exemplify how rubbish the lift is by displaying these pictograms. Which are also rubbish.
Where to start?
The top row of pictograms shows that 4 people is OK but 6 is too many. Fair enough, but what about 5? Is it an edge case that tips the balance or is it safe enough if the fifth person isn't too fat?
(to be fair the answer is on the floor at the entrance to the lift where it says, in words, 'Maximum of 4 people at one time'. Admittedly that's not helpful to anyone who can't read English, but a pair of pictograms showing 4 Yes 6 No totally fails to define the borderline)
The second red pictogram does show 5 people but one of them has a suitcase, thus suggsting it's the heavy bag which tips things over the limit. Again it's impossible to deduce whether '5 people' or '4 people and a suitcase' falls under green or under red.
The second green pictogram is the only one to depict a bicycle, presumably with its rider standing alongside. It suggests there's room for just one other person and a suitcase, but it's not clear wheether a third person could fit in if they were luggageless.
The third row is the first to clearly define a limit - two heavy people and a wheelchair yes, three heavy people and a wheelchair no. It's not clear whether three people without luggage can accompany a wheelchair.
The last green pictogram shows 4 people, one of whom just happens to be very small and in a pushchair. The last red pictogram adds an extra person and a suitcase to this scenario, but we can't tell if just one of these extras would be OK.
It is a very small lift so maybe some of the red pictograms are showing groups that can't cram into the limited space, but that would be about practicalities rather than 'safe lift loading', meaning the title was inaccurate.
I don't doubt that someone's checked various weight combinations before presenting us with these four green and four red combinations, but they remain insufficient to accurately define what can and what shouldn't fit in the lift. I can imagine baffled passengers standing in front of the lift entirely unable to deduce whether their group is green or red ("there are four of us but we have two suitcases, help!").
The clearest instruction remains 'Maximum of 4 people at one time', as written on the floor, although one of the pictograms (three people with luggage and a wheelchair user) is actually red not green.
Oh and if you enter the lift at the other end there are no warning messages or pictograms whatsoever. I have rarely seen ridiculouser.
Update: I've managed to find the previous sign by wandering round a VR representation of Liverpool Street station.
It used to be a laminated sheet of A4 paper and it used to say
MAXIMUM LIMIT
4 PERSONS
OR
2 PERSONS & PUSHCHAIR OR WHEELCHAIR
That's clearer, if rather too simple.
It's also what the four green pictograms appear to show, with the addition of 2 PERSONS & BICYCLE. However the pictograms have a lot of superfluous luggage which muddies the water somewhat. They also include more people than the poster suggests, for example 2 PERSONS & PUSHCHAIR CONTAINING CHILD & PERSON PUSHING PUSHCHAIR.
It's the red pictograms that don't help because they don't exemplify the minimum unacceptable load.
The scrappy poster isn't perfect but I'd argue it's easier to understand than the pictograms (assuming you can read it).
Also I note that the safety limit above the buttons says "MAXIMUM LOAD 18 PERSONS OR 1300KG".
And now we're only allowed FOUR persons, that's how unreliably awful this lift is.
There are plans to replace it and add additional lifts as part of therevamp of the station, although they're controversial and rely on building a 'landmark' building above the concourse and are likely years away, if they happen at all.
In the meantime the awful juddery lift with the ridiculous pictograms continues to connect three levels of Liverpool Street station, and we should all be ashamed it exists.
