Does anybody have experience of Intelligent (dimmed) street lights?

[Aramcheck]

Hi,

Awhile ago our council approved a scheme to have new LED lighting, which would be controlled by a Central Management System. The system hasn't been implemented yet, so does anybody in the UK have experience of a similar system which is already operating and, where the street lights are being dimmed late at night/early in the morning?

I'd be interested to know if there's any info on the dimming regime being used and whether it only applies to main roads, or also includes residential areas.

Has there been any push back from the public on feeling safe or increase in crime/accidents?

In Leeds there have been a couple of trials, about 10 years ago, where street lights were dimmed late at night. In one trial in 2009, lights were dimmed by 20% at 9pm and 50% at midnight, returning to full illumination at 5am. Afterwards 80% of residents hadn't noticed that the lights had been dimmed; 89% thought there would be no increase in road accidents & 77% thought there would be no effect on crime. 79% had either not noticed or felt that the dimmed lights would make no difference to their perception of safety.

I think Edinburgh & Aberdeen may be making use of intelligent lighting?

Many thanks
Ivor

[Jiggy 67]

I’ve never understood why we don’t use motion activated lighting. Why do we light areas for no reason where no people are, wasting millions of pounds, using fossil fuels and spoiling the night sky?…bizarre 

Hope your scheme goes well

[Tiny Clanger]

No idea if it counts as intelligent lighting, but our council opted to cut power bills by tuning off every other street light at  midnight .

When they mentioned it was going to happen (via a leaflet through every front door )it, and less frequent grass cutting of verges ,were cited as things they  were doing to keep the poll tax increase as low as possible. Nobody seems to have been upset by the switch off, and I'm positively delighted 🙂 It makes an enormous improvement for all but bright targets.

Heather

[JeremyS]

5 minutes ago, Tiny Clanger said:

No idea if it counts as intelligent lighting, but our council opted to cut power bills by tuning off every other street light at  midnight .

When they mentioned it was going to happen (via a leaflet through every front door )it, and less frequent grass cutting of verges ,were cited as things they  were doing to keep the poll tax increase as low as possible. Nobody seems to have been upset by the switch off, and I'm positively delighted 🙂 It makes an enormous improvement for all but bright targets.

Heather

Maybe you can tell them It was such a brilliantly successful idea, they should now switch off the other half 😊

[Tiny Clanger]

25 minutes ago, JeremyS said:

Maybe you can tell them It was such a brilliantly successful idea, they should now switch off the other half 😊

Wonder if I was I the only person who had a little moment of seeing some positive points when there was wild talk last week of possible power cuts in the winter ...

[Pixies]

I'm in Edinburgh and they are indeed rolling out 'smart' LED lighting with a CMS. However, they don't intend to use the controls until the roll-out is complete and it's been delayed due to Covid. Neither have they said how they plan to use the control system.  Edinburgh doesn't  have any lights that turn off overnight - but dimming sounds great. Fingers crossed....

Only one zone is left to do now (Oct-Dec) and guess where muggins here lives! 🙄

Looking forward to the demise of the old streetlight in the back lane that lights up most the garden! 

[fozzybear]

Here our village lights out 10PM (street lights) also out local Stadium (football ground floodlights) limit to 9pm after October thank god we have no security lights on houses as love the darkness....

[7170]

Given the recent material hikes in energy prices you would think councils (and other establishments) would be scrambling to turn off anything and everything they could in an attempt to get costs back to pre-hike amounts!

Turning every other light off (or 2 in 3 off in many places as they are so close) is a good start....

[JeremyS]

1 hour ago, 7170 said:

Given the recent material hikes in energy prices you would think councils (and other establishments) would be scrambling to turn off anything and everything they could in an attempt to get costs back to pre-hike amounts!

Turning every other light off (or 2 in 3 off in many places as they are so close) is a good start....

Now THAT would be intelligent 😊