Gina Barney passed away on 6th July 2023. She has worked in the lift industry since 1968.
She ran Gina Barney Associates, was a senior member of the BSI/MHE/4 Lifts committee, member of the ISO/WG6 and WG10 committees, technical editor of CIBSE Guide D, member of the CIBSE Lifts Group, member of the Academy of Experts, member of the Society of Authors, Freeman of the City of London and Liveryman of the Worshipful Company of Engineers.

Dr Gina Barney started her involvement in the lift industry in January 1968 at Manchester University.

Shortly after she formed a team to work on lift traffic systems.  Her second PhD student, David Closs analysed call allocation (also known as destination control).  She and her student, Sergio Dos Santos, developed the classical calculation equations used in ISO 8100-32.

Together they also implemented the first interactive lift simulation design (LSD) software.  Prof dos Santos received his PhD for this work.

His thesis published the destination call algorithm preventing any lift company patenting it.  Later they collaborated on two books Lift Traffic Analysis, Design and Control (1977) and Elevator Traffic Analysis, Design and Control (1985).  Sergio became the Vice Chancellor of the Universidade do Minho, Portugal.

Another lift industry colleague Dr Jonathan Beebe graduated with a PhD in lift control with Dr Barney and went to work on the lifts in the BBC’s Bush House. London.  Professor Lutfi Al-Sharif (University of Jordan) also received his doctorate at Manchester.  Dr Barney and Professor Al-Sharif published the second edition of the Elevator Traffic Handbook (2016) together.

They also examined Dr Richard Peters for his EngD.  Dr Barney has worked closely with Dr Peters since 1990 and some of her influence shows in Elevate^TM traffic analysis and simulation software.  At about that time Dr Barney took early retirement from Manchester University.  Recently, Dr Ana Lorente was supervised by Dr Barney for her doctorate.  She used the Elevate traffic simulator, extensively, to support the work of the ISO group (TC178/WG10) who wrote BS ISO 25745-2 (energy consumption of lifts).  They were both members. Dr Barney is Principal of Gina Barney Associates, a senior member of BSI/MHE/4 lift committee, member of ISO/WG6 and WG10 committees, Technical Editor of CIBSE Guide D, Member CIBSE Lifts Group, Honorary English Editor of Elevatori, Member of the Academy of Experts, Member of the Society of Authors, Freeman of the City of London and Liveryman of the Worshipful Company of Engineers.