Highway Lighting

Highway Lighting

Lighting industry organizations and government agencies have published various guides, handbooks, and standards that define and detail roadway lighting design practices.

The information in this article provides a different perspective on highway lighting, rather than repeating all the details.

Highly Engineered Product

Before any designer proceeds, he or she should review site conditions and agree with localities and electrical utilities to get information about the area to be illuminated and move forward with the project. Large lighting manufacturers such as Depar Energy have a computer software that perfectly coordinates works such as highway lighting and calculates lighting levels point by point. This software, which makes measurements according to the entered design parameters, enables designers to evaluate their designs more easily and to improve them without errors.

The highway lighting system is established by the selection of the elements of the system to be applied to the road after the design is made. These:

• Light source type

• Light source size and mounting height

• Light pole type and location, and

• It is the light pole spacing and layout

These items may be fixed or predetermined due to local preferences or current conditions. Once it has been determined that the design will provide the desired levels of illumination, the length of the pole and the diameters of the pole, arm and fixture should be determined. The company working on most highway lighting systems uses an aluminum material lighting pole with the length of the mast less than 16.75 m and the combined mass of the mast, arm and luminaire 450 kg. Designs that result in a mast length in excess of 16.75 m or a mass in excess of 450 kg are redesigned to a lower mounting height and a thicker hence a shorter mast.

Type of Light Source Used for Highway Lighting

For highway lighting systems, which are generally applied with 150 W, 250 W or 400 W lamps, light poles should be mounted on the road with a minimum height of 9m.

The following are commonly used lamps and mounting systems:

• A 150 W light pole mounted at a height of approximately 9 m.

• Light mast of 250 W, mounted at a height of 12 m.

• A 400 W light mast mounted above 12 m and at a height of up to 15 m.

Highway Lighting Poles Type and Location

The pole selection should be projected according to the width of the road to be illuminated and the area to be illuminated. The light pole should be placed adjacent to the area where the highway lighting will be applied. Light poles should be placed as far apart as possible to minimize the total number of poles as an additional contribution to the necessary road and passenger safety. In areas where highway lighting will be applied, it is necessary to increase the number of poles in places with high pedestrian activity, bus stops, places close to the settlement.

Equipped with LED lighting fixtures that stand out with their maintenance costs, long lifespan and energy savings, aluminum highway lighting poles seem to continue to illuminate our roads.