One of my local supermarkets here in England has a second storey. They have ramped travelators connecting it to the ground floor. The moving floor of the travelators appears to be a specially grooved rubber, which is a perfect fit for the flanged wheels of the trolleys (shopping carts). You just walk onto the travelator pushing your trolley, and the wheels lock into position. They don’t move an inch until you get to the top, where the metal off-ramp is angled to force the trolley wheels up and out of the grooves. Magic!
(PS. I saw the same system in a hypermarket in Paris in 1994.)
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