The PCA grade is the benchmark Australian office buildings are judged against, and lift service is one of the things it judges. What it measures is narrower than most people assume, and what it deliberately leaves out is the more useful half of the answer.
PCA lift grading assesses a building's vertical transport against service-quality criteria tied to a quality grade — Premium, A, B or C. The lift criteria cover car capacity, ride quality, waiting time, handling capacity and goods lift provision, and they are set out in two separate matrices: one for new buildings and one for existing buildings. The grade describes the service a lift group is designed or assessed to deliver. It says nothing about whether that equipment is reliable, what it costs to run, or what condition it is in.
What does the PCA grade measure for lifts?
Five things, and they are all about the experience of moving through the building rather than the equipment itself:
- Car capacity — whether the cars are sized for the population they serve.
- Ride quality — assessed through lateral vibration. How the car rides, not merely whether it arrives.
- Waiting time — how long a passenger waits at the landing, specified at more than one peak.
- Handling capacity — the share of the building's population the group can move within a defined period.
- Goods and service lift provision — assessed separately from the passenger group.
Ride quality is the one that surprises people. A group can meet its waiting-time and capacity targets and still be judged down on how the cars ride, which is a reminder that the grade is a service-quality framework rather than a throughput calculation.
Why are there two matrices?
Because a building that has not been built yet and a building full of tenants are not the same assessment. The guide sets out the lift criteria in a New Buildings matrix and an Existing Buildings matrix, and this is the most consequential thing about PCA lift grading that almost nobody acts on.
A design-stage grade is a prediction. It is produced before anyone occupies the building, from assumed floor populations and assumed arrival rates, and it describes the service the group should deliver if those assumptions hold. It is an entirely legitimate exercise, and it is correct on its own terms.
An existing-building assessment is a different exercise against a different matrix, applied to a building whose actual use is now observable. It is also the one that rarely gets done. A grade established at design stage is commonly quoted in leasing and valuation material for the life of the asset, long after the building filled up and started behaving like itself. The number is not dishonest. It is simply answering a question about a building that was predicted rather than the one that exists.
If you are handed a grade, the first two questions are which matrix it came from and when it was established.
Which peaks does the waiting-time target cover?
More than one, and that matters more than it sounds. The waiting-time criterion is specified for the morning up peak and for the lunch peak, which are different traffic problems wearing the same label.
The morning peak is overwhelmingly one-directional: a large population arriving over a short window, nearly all of it travelling up from a single entry level. The lunch peak is two-way and interfloor-heavy, with passengers leaving, returning and moving between floors at the same time. A group sized and tuned for the morning arrival can sit comfortably inside its target there and be borderline at lunch.
This is why a single averaged waiting-time figure tells you very little. Ask which peak it describes.
How is a PCA lift grade arrived at?
Three documents do three separate jobs, and conflating them is the most common misunderstanding in this area.
At design stage, the population and arrival assumptions are established, the group is sized using published design guidance — CIBSE Guide D provides both the recommendations and the round-trip-time calculation behind them — and the resulting design is verified by simulation under ISO 8100-32. The PCA matrix is the yardstick the result is then held against.
So: PCA sets the grade a design is judged against, CIBSE Guide D provides the sizing and the calculation, and ISO 8100-32 provides the simulation that verifies it. The PCA guide is not a calculation method, and no amount of reading it will size a lift group. Our article on how many lifts a building needs covers that side.
What the grade does not tell you
| Question | Answered by the PCA lift criteria? |
|---|---|
| How long will people wait at the peaks? | Yes — a target tied to the grade |
| How many people can the group move? | Yes — handling capacity |
| Are the cars sized for the population? | Yes — car capacity |
| How does the car ride? | Yes — assessed through lateral vibration |
| Is goods and service provision adequate? | Yes — assessed separately |
| Will the lifts actually be running? | No |
| What will they cost to run? | No |
| What condition is the equipment in? | No |
| Is the maintenance contractor performing? | No |
Those four "no" rows are where most operational disappointment actually lives. A Premium-graded group that is frequently out of service delivers worse service than a lower-graded group that runs — the grade describes designed or assessed service quality, and lift availability is a separate axis with a separate measure. Energy performance belongs to ISO 25745. Equipment condition belongs to a condition assessment. Contractor performance belongs to the contract and the reporting behind it.
None of that is a criticism of the framework. The PCA guide is a building-quality benchmark and was never written to answer those questions. The error is treating a grade as a summary of how the lifts are doing.
What to do with a grade you have been given
- Establish which matrix produced it — new buildings or existing buildings — and the date it was established.
- Ask what assumptions it was built on if it is a design-stage figure: assumed populations, densities and arrival rates.
- Ask which peak any waiting-time figure describes.
- Treat it as one measure among several. Pair it with availability, condition and energy rather than reading it as a verdict on the lifts.
- Consider a reassessment against the existing-buildings criteria where the building's use has changed materially since handover.
Short FAQ
Does a Premium-graded building mean the lifts were assessed as Premium? Not necessarily, and the two should not be used interchangeably. The guide sets lift criteria within a broader building-quality framework, so a headline building grade is not a substitute for the lift parameters themselves. Ask which lift criteria were assessed, against which matrix, and when.
Can an existing building be graded? Yes — there is a dedicated Existing Buildings matrix for exactly that purpose. Whether it happens is another question. Most buildings are never reassessed after handover, which is why so many grades in circulation describe a design rather than an operating asset.
A PCA grade is a good answer to the question it was written to answer. The trouble starts when it is asked a different one.
Related reading
More from the MAPLE Ascent Insights series.
Destination control vs conventional dispatch: what changes for tenants
How destination control differs from conventional collective control, what tenants actually notice about the change, where each approach wins, and what to ask for at design stage — for developers and building managers.
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What is a lift condition assessment, and when do you need one?
What a lift condition assessment examines, how subsystem ratings are derived and why methods differ, and how the findings become a defensible capital plan — for facilities managers and owners.
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Lift modernisation vs replacement: how to decide
Modernisation renews selected subsystems; replacement renews the whole lift. The decision usually turns on obsolescence rather than wear. A framework across condition, obsolescence, disruption and capital — and how to place your own building on it.
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How much energy do lifts and escalators use?
Lift energy consumption explained: running versus standby energy, what each modernisation technology step actually saves, and how ISO 25745 turns it into an energy class and a payback period.
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What does a lift maintenance contract actually cover?
What a lift maintenance contract actually covers — comprehensive versus basic scope, the exclusions that generate the extras, and the clauses that quietly decide cost and risk. A guide for building owners and asset managers.
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How to run a lift maintenance tender in Australia
Lift maintenance tenders in Australia — when to tender, what to prepare, how the process runs and the pitfalls to avoid, for building owners and managers.
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What is good lift availability? A benchmark guide
What lift availability means, what counts as good, and how to hold a contractor to it — a plain-language benchmark guide for building owners and asset managers.
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How many lifts does a building need?
Lift traffic analysis explained — waiting time, handling capacity and demand profiles, benchmarked against PCA, CIBSE Guide D and ISO 8100-32.
Read article →