(57) In an elevator system, the number of hall passengers waiting for a car at a stop is determined in accordance with a method comprising the steps of:

determining a first instantaneous passenger rate in response to a first signal indicating that the car has serviced a stop;

determining a second instantaneous passenger rate in response to a second signal indicating that a hall call button has been pressed;

scaling said first and second rates by dividing said rates by (i-l)/(F-1), where i is the floor number and F is the total number of building floors, in response to said first and second rates being calculated at a down stop and by dividing said rates by (F-l)/(F-i) in response to said first and second rates being calculated at an up stop;

averaging said first and second instantaneous passenger rates into an up-peak, down-peak, or off-peak quantity in proportion to the degrees of membership of terms of a traffic mode fuzzy set having terms indicative of the degree to which the elevator system exhibits up-peak, down-peak and off-peak characteristics; and

estimating the number of hall passengers waiting at particular elevator stop by multiplying the elapsed time since the particular stop was last serviced by said up-peak, down-peak, and off-peak quantities in proportion to the appropriate degrees of membership of terms of said traffic mode fuzzy set.