Thursday, May 22, 2014

Street Lighting As An Important Aspect Of Security

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.

Prior to the discovery of incandescent lamps, candle light lit the streets. A slight improvement on this introduced lamp lighting trips in the city each morning. These trips were always aimed at lighting all lamps in the streets. Later, ignition equipments were used to do this. The devices could strike flames automatically for as long as there was gas supply.

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 They got outdated as soon as affordable, reliable and more luminous incandescent lamps were invented.

The operation of incandescent bulbs was often done using a lot of power through series arrangement of circuits. The high voltage carried by the circuits increased the usage of these lamps since they gave out more light per watt consumed. Series arrangement of circuits made controlling the bulbs less troublesome.

Contemporary street illumination entails use of discharge bulbs. In most instances, they are sodium lamps with high pressure within them. They emit large quantities of light, but only use small amounts of energy. Nevertheless, they are often found to be inappropriate for lighting during the night in contrast to ordinary white light. Study has established that the normal white light is the best for drivers owing to the fact that it helps them see properly, and act fast whenever braking is needed.

New technologies for street illumination like induction lights produce white light that gives high levels of lumen. This makes it possible for illumination that requires less power and lumen to substitute current ones. Lack of official specifications on the prescribed lights has made it impossible for most municipalities to endorse them. LED luminaries are being widely accepted owing to test confirmations that they are more energy-efficient and perform well.

A new harmonized measurement system has been invented. It operates using two concurrent measuring systems. This was seen as being a noble invention since less energy is spent compared to earlier methods. The cost of measurement is greatly reduced. It is possible to measure three light pollution properties; glare, trespass and glow, using this method. It is also practical to assign a value to the performance of current and future lighting applications and designs for the sake of cutting down the amount of light crossing the borders of any 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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