March 1, 2023

Knaq keeps the Port Authority’s elevators and escalators on the up-and-up

When Brian Carey launched Lower Manhattan startup Knaq in 2017, the engineer and Stanford research fellow planned to develop monitoring devices for industrial equipment including wastewater pumps and compressors. But the first client he landed was a tiny elevator company in New Jersey. And thus his long ride began.

“I never thought in a million years I would know this much about elevators and escalators,” Carey says now.

Exploring the industry, he discovered something wild: There were no devices on the market that could send real-time status alerts to elevator and escalator operators. Hospitals, transit agencies and lots of other institutions were still relying on customer complaints or a daily maintenance check to learn when a people mover was on the fritz.

Now Knaq provides elevator, escalator and moving-walkway monitoring services to a dozen clients operating more than 1,000 people movers, largely in the New York area. The company’s devices send instant text or email alerts to operators as soon as the equipment stops running—potentially eliminating hours of downtime.

Read more

October 31, 2022

Tech will spot unsafe behavior and energy waste in transit systems

The half-dozen firms piloting their products with transit agencies—the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, NJ Transit and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey—completed proof of concepts this summer and fall and will begin yearlong pilots.

Read more

Partnership for New York City logo
Metropolitan Transportation Authority

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.