An enhanced particle inerter device (EPID) is innovatively developed to mitigate the dynamic responses of multi-story structures subjected to seismic excitations. The device dissipates energy through tuning, particle-cavity collisions, and the inertia amplification effect of the inerter. Multi-story response can be mitigated when the inerter unit connect the particle device and the cross-story. In this paper, a shaking table test was conducted to investigate the working mechanism of the EPID on the dynamic response of multi-story structures. A series of parametric studies were undertaken to analyze both the individual and combined effects of the particle damping unit and inerter unit within the device. Furthermore, a parameter optimization analysis guided by a genetic algorithm was carried out, resulting in a significant enhancement of 27.92% in displacement control and 24.41% in acceleration control when compared to the traditional design. Moreover, the energy dissipated by the main structure with the optimized EPID shows a decrease of 45.4% when compared to the traditional design. •An enhanced particle inerter device is proposed with experiments and simulations.•EPID’s multi-story vibration control effect is studied through shaking table test.•Individual and combined effects of particle unit and inerter unit are studied.•An EPID parameter optimization analysis based on genetic algorithm is proposed.