A passenger elevator is designed to move people between a building's floors.

Passenger elevators capacity is related to the available floor space. Generally passenger elevators are available in capacities from 500 to 2,700 kg (1,000–6,000 lb) in 230 kg (500 lb) increments. Generally passenger elevators in buildings of eight floors or fewer are hydraulic or electric, which can reach speeds up to 1 m/s (200 ft/min) hydraulic and up to 152 m/min (500 ft/min) electric. In buildings up to ten floors, electric and gearless elevators are likely to have speeds up to 3 m/s (500 ft/min), and above ten floors speeds range 3 to 10 m/s (500–2,000 ft/min).

Sometimes passenger elevators are used as a city transport along with funiculars. For example, there is a 3-station underground public elevator in Yalta, Ukraine, which takes passengers from the top of a hill above the Black Sea on which hotels are perched, to a tunnel located on the beach below. At Casco Viejo station in the Bilbao Metro, the elevator that provides access to the station from a hilltop neighborhood doubles as city transportation: the station's ticket barriers are set up in such a way that passengers can pay to reach the elevator from the entrance in the lower city, or vice versa. See also the Elevators for urban transport section.

Capacity

Residential elevators may be small enough to only accommodate one person while some are large enough for more than a dozen. Wheelchair, or platform elevators, a specialized type of elevator designed to move a wheelchair 3.7 m (12 ft) or less, can often accommodate just one person in a wheelchair at a time with a load of 340 kg (750 lb)