Street Lighting In Modern Times

By Marci Glover


Raised sources are the most preferred for lighting our towns, cities, road edges and walkways. In street lighting, the source of light is usually turned on and off at certain times. In modern times, lamps have photocells that are light-sensitive. Their work is to automatically turn on the light at night and off in the morning. Previously, solar dials aided this function. It is common for sources to be on tall poles connected with wires between them.

Before the invention of incandescent lamps, candles were used in cities. Later, lamps needed a lamplighter tour every night to light all the lamps. This were then improved such that, an ignition device was used. It could strike the flame on its own provided the gas supply was active.

Streets were lit electrically for the first time when arc lamps were invented. Lamps fitted with carbon arcs made sure that electrodes in the bulbs were consumed concurrently. A departmental store in France employed this technology for a very long time. However, arc lights produced hostile and intense light that caused a lot of discomfort among city dwellers. Worse still, a lot of time and money was involved in their maintenance. They got outdated as soon as affordable, reliable and more luminous incandescent lamps were invented.

Incandescent lamps were often operated at a very high voltage in circuits arranged in series. The popularity of series circuits was influenced by the fact that the higher voltage in the circuits gave out more photons for every watt used. This arrangement also made it easy to control all bulbs in the district.

In modern times, lighting the streets applies very intensive discharge lamps. Mostly, high pressure sodium bulbs are used. These bulbs use a very little amount of electricity, but emit a lot of light. However, if light calculations are done, these lamps are often discovered as being inappropriate for night illumination as contrasted to white illuminations. Research has found out that whit light is good for peripheral vision of drivers and their reaction to brake.

Light induction is an example of new technology in street illumination. It emits white light that produces better lumen. This technology, therefore, enables lights that need less electricity and lumen to be used in place of current ones. Absence of formal specifications on these lights has rendered them useless for sometime awaiting approval. There has been a substantive acceptance of LED luminaries due to the confirmation that there energy-efficiency is higher than that of previous designs.

A harmonious system of photometry was created by coming up with two similar measurement systems. This was a good idea since less power is used compared to previous methods. It saves the cost involved in measurement. The new method; Outdoor Site-Lighting Performance predicts and measures three elements of light pollution: trespass, glow and glare. This method makes it possible for lighting technicians to quantify the working of current and planned illuminating designs and applications to cut down excessive illumination crossing the boundaries of a property.

It is important to illuminate the streets since doing so prevents occurrence of accidents and improves safety. Illuminating the streets can, however cause accidents and pollution if it is not properly implemented. Accidents likely to arise include; loss of night vision, electrocution due to stray voltage and collisions due to bad lighting.




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