The Top 10 Attributes to Consider for Smart Street Lighting
January 30, 2020
(Part 1 of 2)
Whether in the cities or the suburbs, reliable street
lighting provides residents with a sense of security. But this essential
service is often plagued with problems, from streetlights that are unreliable
or damaged, burned out bulbs, lack of proper synchronization with sunrise and
sunset and brightness or dimness issues. Moreover, operating and maintaining traditional
street lighting systems is expensive with maintenance teams relying on personal
observance of problems or reports from the public.
No one disputes the value of good street lighting, and with emerging
smart street lighting solutions the problems with older systems can be
overcome. The first step for municipalities is understanding smart street
lighting solutions and the value they offer.
There are a variety of important considerations for those
contemplating upgrading their existing systems with smart street lighting,
including the following 5 (we’ll explore another 5 in a subsequent blog) :
- Deployment – Is the system
easy to roll out across a municipality? What is the deployment process? What is
the typical implementation timeframe for vendors who can provide these
solutions?
- Programmability – How
simple is it to program the lighting for the municipality’s needs? What are the
steps involved?
- Central control – Who will
handle oversight of the lighting network, and from where?
- Does the solution allow for
a generic backbone or platform over the area or sections of the city that allow
for centralized management?
- Does the solution offer web-based
or other centralized management, making replacing and repairing problems easier?
How are problems detected? Rather than riding around looking for problems, does
the system provide alerts about problems as they happen, pinpointing the
location so repairs can be made quickly and efficiently?
- Flexibility – Is the system
easy to manipulate as needed? For instance, if there is a crime scene at night
and the police are searching for a suspect, is it possible to increase the
brightness of the lighting within a certain sector of the city?
- Does the vendor offer a
variety of solutions that can be tailored to the unique needs of the
municipality?
- Reliability – Are the systems
installed in other municipalities with similar needs? How are they received in
those locations?
- What other municipalities has
your vendor engaged with? How successful was their upgraded lighting systems
process?
- Was the vendor able to meet
the unique needs of each municipality where its solutions are deployed?
The Top 10 Attributes to Consider for Smart Street Lighting
February 3, 2020
(Part 2 of 2)
In this blog, we consider an additional 5 key attributes, as
follows:
- Security – Does the vendor
ensure secure access and communications links?
- Network robustness and
communication reliability – Does the vendor provide the best and most reliable
network and communication infrastructure for your lighting network and
municipal topography? Does the solution provide local or wide area coverage? Is
the network Internet of Things (IoT) ready?
- Feature system set – Does
the vendor offer options and features for self-healing functions, simple report
generation, remote control of individual luminaire or groups of luminaires,
pre-programmed scheduling options and more?
- Future-proof – Are the
solutions built on the latest lighting-control technologies? Will the vendor
discuss ways to ensure the project will still be viable in five or 10 years?
Can the system accommodate the integration of various IoT sensors, without
modifying the wireless network?
- Economically beneficial –
Will the system pay for itself? And in what timeframe? Will residents notice?
- What percentage of energy
use reduction is expected with the vendor’s solutions?
- Does the vendor offer smart
controls and proactive maintenance that can help reduce costs even further?
- Is the system simple enough
so that municipal workers responsible for lighting are freed up for other
tasks?
To learn more about smart lighting solution options that may work for your municipality, visit our overview page here: https://www.telematics-wireless.com/technology/overview/
