How the two differ in kind
Start with the arithmetic, because it settles most of these. A ramp's length is the vertical rise divided by the permitted gradient, and at the conventional maximum of one in twelve a rise of one metre needs twelve metres of slope. Add the level landings that codes require at the top, the bottom and at intervals along the run, and the space consumed is considerably more than the slope alone. On a constrained entrance, a front garden or a corridor, that length simply does not exist.
A gentler gradient is better for the people using it and worse for the length — one in fifteen or one in twenty is markedly easier to ascend and proportionally longer. The maximum is a limit rather than a target, and a long ramp at the maximum gradient is exhausting to climb even though it is compliant. Rest landings exist for that reason and they are part of the length rather than an addition to it.
A lift takes the same rise in a footprint of a couple of square metres and introduces something the ramp does not have: DEPENDENCE. It needs power, it needs maintenance, it needs a pit and an overrun or their low-rise equivalents, and it will at some point be out of service. Where it is the only accessible route into a building, that is not an inconvenience — it is the access being unavailable, which is precisely what the provision existed to prevent.
The factors that actually differ
Show
| Platform lift | Ramp | |
|---|---|---|
| Space required | A few square metres, plus the pit and headroom the type needs. This is the whole reason it is chosen. | The rise divided by the gradient, plus landings. Long, and longer at gentler gradients. |
| Dependence | Power, controls and maintenance. Out of service means no accessible route unless there is another. | None. It works in a power cut, at night, and when nobody has serviced anything. |
| Effort to use | None. Press a button. | Real, and it grows with length and gradient. A long ramp at the maximum slope is hard work for a self-propelling wheelchair user and for anyone with limited stamina. |
| Weather | External units need weather protection and their own drainage; controls and doors are the vulnerable parts. | Needs falls, drainage and a slip-resistant surface — and it ices, which is the failure that matters and the reason heating or covering is sometimes specified. |
| Maintenance | A service contract for the life of the building, plus statutory inspection in most jurisdictions. | Cleaning, and eventually a resurface. Handrails need checking. |
| Who can use it | Everyone, including a person unable to self-propel up any gradient. | Most people, and not all — a long ramp excludes some of the people a step excludes, more gently. |
| Handrails and edges | Enclosure and gates are part of the product. | Handrails both sides with extensions beyond the ends, plus edge protection to stop a wheel running off — all specified dimensions rather than choices. |
| Shape of the cost | Capital plus a service contract for ever, and a replacement at the end of its life. | Civil works once, then almost nothing. Cheaper over a building's life wherever there is room for it. |
Which one, and when
Choose platform lift when…
- The rise is more than a ramp of acceptable length can absorb — a full storey, or a site with no run available.
- The building is listed or constrained, where a long external ramp would be refused or would dominate the frontage.
- There is a second accessible route, so a lift out of service does not remove access entirely.
- The users include people who cannot self-propel up any gradient, for whom a compliant ramp is still a barrier.
Choose ramp when…
- The rise is modest and the length exists — a step or two at an entrance, a threshold, a garden level change.
- It is the only accessible route, where a passive solution that cannot fail is worth a great deal.
- Nobody will service a machine: a small building, a community facility, a private house.
- The whole-life cost matters and there is room, because a ramp built once is a ramp maintained for nothing.
Now run your own numbers
This page holds no prices on purpose — a national average is wrong for almost every real project. Quantify both options with your dimensions and your local quotes.
Frequently asked questions
- How long does a ramp have to be?
- Rise divided by gradient, plus landings, and the figure surprises people every time. At a maximum of one in twelve, a rise of one metre is twelve metres of slope — and codes require a level landing at the top and bottom and at intervals along the run, typically after a stated maximum rise or length per flight, so the real footprint is longer again. Gentler gradients are better to use and proportionally longer: one in twenty turns that same metre into twenty metres. The practical consequence is that a ramp for anything more than a couple of steps needs a run most entrances do not have, which is why switchback ramps with intermediate landings exist and why they consume so much of a frontage.
- Can I use a steeper gradient for a small rise?
- Several codes permit it, within tightly defined limits, and it is worth checking rather than assuming either way. The typical provision allows a steeper slope for a very small rise — a single step's worth — on the reasoning that a short steep section is manageable where a long one is not. Those allowances are specific about the maximum rise they apply to and they do not scale up. What they are not is a general licence to steepen a ramp to make it fit: a ramp at a non-compliant gradient is not a partly accessible ramp, it is a ramp that excludes the people it was built for, and it will be identified as such on any access audit.
- What happens when the lift breaks?
- The accessible route is unavailable, and that is the honest framing rather than a pessimistic one. Lifts are reliable and they are also machines with service intervals, call-out times and parts availability, and a platform lift in a small building may be out of service for days. Where it is the ONLY accessible entrance, that is a period during which some people cannot enter the building at all. The mitigations are a second accessible route where one is possible, a maintenance contract with a response time appropriate to the consequence, and — for buildings where it matters — a procedure for what staff do when it happens. None of those is expensive; all of them are frequently omitted because the lift is treated as a building element rather than as equipment.
- Do ramps need handrails on both sides?
- Generally yes above a modest rise, and the detail that is most often missed is the EXTENSION beyond each end. A handrail that stops at the top of the slope gives no support at the moment a person is transitioning onto the level, and for someone with a visual impairment the extension is also the cue that the ramp is about to begin or has just ended. Edge protection is the other requirement: an upstand or a kerb along any open edge, to stop a wheel running off the side. Both are specified dimensions rather than design choices, and a ramp built to the right gradient without them is not compliant — which is a common outcome when a ramp is built by a general builder from a sketch.
- What about ice on an external ramp?
- It is the failure mode of the option that otherwise cannot fail, and it deserves designing for rather than gritting. A ramp is a sloping surface that people with limited mobility depend on, and a thin film of ice on it is more dangerous than the steps it replaced. The routes are a covered ramp, a slip-resistant surface specified by measured value rather than by appearance, falls and drainage that stop water standing on it, and in severe climates a heating system — which returns some of the dependence a ramp was chosen to avoid, though a failed heating system leaves a usable ramp rather than no access. Drainage is the cheapest and most effective: most ramp ice is water that should have left the surface.
- Which is cheaper over twenty years?
- The ramp, in most cases, and by more than the construction comparison suggests. A ramp is a one-off civil cost with essentially no running cost — cleaning, occasional resurfacing, a handrail check. A lift is capital plus a service contract for every year of its life plus statutory inspection plus eventual replacement, and the contract is the item that accumulates. The comparison flips where the ramp would need retaining structure, a switchback, or land the site does not have, because then the ramp's capital cost climbs steeply and the lift's does not. As with every whole-life comparison on this site, the honest form is an annualised one against the actual quotations rather than a general claim.