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In the contemporary world, science and technology are advancing swiftly to meet the growing human need for electricity. Within this framework, street lighting, serving as the most vital and ubiquitous element of urban lighting infrastructure, contributes significantly to public electricity consumption. Hence, enhancing the operational efficiency of street lamps becomes imperative to conserve energy. Nonetheless, traditional street lighting systems, being manually controlled, consuming excessive power, and entailing high installation expenses, present notable drawbacks and concerns. Leveraging the internet of things (IoT), advanced innovations automate various areas, including health monitoring, traffic management, agricultural irrigation, street lights, and classrooms. The current manual operation of street lights leads to substantial global energy waste. To address this, an integrated hardware and software solution is proposed. Practical implementation of the hardware devices employs a wireless sensor network, while the software focuses on developing an IoT application for data storage, analysis, and visualization. The proposed system enables effective monitoring of parameters such as ambient temperature, current, voltage, and energy consumption of photovoltaic street lights, which are used as an indicator of the lamp status. Using Xbee modules, a configuration by the X-CTU software is necessary to communicate between all street lights wirelessly. These Xbee modules are used as a leading technology for wireless sensor networks due to its low power and low cost. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed system is energy-efficient and cost-effective, and further can be implemented in real street light systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Evidence about the relationship between lighting and crime is mixed. Although a review of evidence found that improved road / street lighting was associated with reductions in crime, these reductions occurred in daylight as well as after dark, suggesting any effect was not due only to changes in visual conditions. One limitation of previous studies is that crime data are reported in aggregate and thus previous analyses were required to make simplifications concerning types of crimes or locations. We will overcome that by working with a UK police force to access records of individual crimes. We will use these data to determine whether the risk of crime at a specific time of day is greater after dark than during daylight. If no difference is found, this would suggest improvements to visual conditions after dark through lighting would have no effect. If however the risk of crime occurring after dark was greater than during daylight, quantifying this effect would provide a measure to assess the potential effectiveness of lighting in reducing crime risk after dark. We will use a case and control approach to analyse ten years of crime data. We will compare counts of crimes in 'case' hours, that are in daylight and darkness at different times of the year, and 'control' hours, that are in daylight throughout the year. From these counts we will calculate odds ratios as a measure of the effect of darkness on risk of crime, using these to answer three questions: 1) Is the risk of overall crime occurring greater after dark than during daylight? 2) Does the risk of crime occurring after dark vary depending on the category of crime? 3) Does the risk of crime occurring after dark vary depending on the geographical area? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents selected results of research on improving pedestrian traffic safety. Based on annually-updated accident statistics made available by the police, as well as the new pedestrian traffic regulations in force, detailed work was undertaken to assess the level of visibility of pedestrians by drivers in pedestrian crossing areas. The research was carried out by analyzing several characteristic cases of pedestrian crossings occurring in Poland, in which there was only dedicated lighting for crossings, only street lighting, and a variant of coexistence of both of the above lighting solutions. Illuminance measurements were made in the horizontal and vertical planes of pedestrian crossings, and the results were confronted with the relevant guidelines. The next step involved a complementary measurement of the luminance distribution of the vertical plane containing the pedestrian and a portion of the sub- and super-horizontal background. Visibility pedestrians was considered in positive and negative contrast variants, and was then related to the obtained results of the illumination distribution. The analysis of the results of the study indicated the possibility of limited visibility of pedestrians at the crossings despite the satisfactory results obtained from measurements of the illuminance distribution within the crossings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Artificial Light at Night (ALAN) has been identified as a primary driver of environmental change in the 21st century with key impacts on ecosystems. At the same time, developments of LED lighting systems with adjustable parameters—such as color temperature and light intensity—may provide an opportunity to mitigate the negative effects of ALAN. To test the potential effects of LED properties, we conducted a comprehensive field study over two summers at three forest sites in Switzerland. We investigated the impact of three key attributes of LED lights (color temperature, brightness, and luminaire shape) on the abundance and community structure of ground-dwelling invertebrate functional groups (predators, omnivores, and detritivores). We found a significantly increased nocturnal attraction of omnivores (+275%) and predators (+70%), but not detritivores, to ALAN, altering arthropod community composition and trophic interactions in forests. LED color temperature and luminaire shape showed minimal effects on all three functional groups, while reducing light level from 100% to 50% attracted fewer individuals in all groups with a significant effect in omnivores (−57%). In addition, we observed significant interactions of color temperatures and luminaire shapes with light intensity, with a decrease in numbers when dimming the light to 50% intensity combined with a color temperature of 3700 K for predators (−53%), with diffusing luminaire shapes for omnivores (−77%) and with standard luminaire shape for detritivores (−27%). The predator-detritivore ratio showed a significant color temperature – light level interaction, with increased numbers of predators around streetlights with 3700 K and 100% intensity, resulting in an elevated top-down pressure on detritivores. These results suggest the importance of considering combined light characteristics in future outdoor lighting designs. [Display omitted] • Assessing the effects of interacting LED light characteristics. • Predators and omnivores are strongly attracted to artificial light at night. • Artificial light at night can increased top-down effects on lower trophic levels. • Light color and luminaire shape show significant interactions with light intensity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Novel study of pedestrian crash severity based on traveled distance. • 25 % of severe crashes near homes; 50 % within 0.8434 miles. • Insights into spatial patterns of pedestrian crashes. Pedestrian safety remains a significant concern, with the growing number of severe pedestrian crashes resulting in substantial human and economic costs. Previous research into pedestrian crashes has extensively analyzed the influences of weather, lighting, and pedestrian demographics. However, these studies often overlook the critical spatial variables that contribute to pedestrian crashes. Our study aims to explore these overlooked spatial variables by examining the distance pedestrians travel before encountering a severe crash. This approach provides a supplementary perspective in safety analysis, emphasizing the importance of pedestrian movement patterns. The model considers various factors that may influence pedestrian traveled distance before being involved in a severe crash, such as weather conditions, lighting conditions, and pedestrian demographics. Ohio's pedestrian-involved crashes were gathered and analyzed as a case study. The results indicated that 50 % of fatal pedestrian crashes occurred within 0.84 miles of the pedestrians' residences. Moreover, it was shown that factors including lighting condition, pedestrian age, drug toxication, and the location at impact significantly influence the pedestrians traveled distance. These findings provide valuable insights into the spatial distribution of pedestrian crashes and shed light on the factors contributing to their severity. By understanding these relationships, policymakers and urban planners can design targeted interventions such as improving street lighting, implementing traffic calming measures, and developing safety awareness campaigns for specific age groups, to enhance pedestrian safety and reduce the incidence of severe crashes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lighting systems, as one of the biggest energy consumers on a global scale, are being upgraded based on innovative energy-saving (hereafter E-saving), energy-efficiency (E-efficiency), and energy-cost (E-cost) reduction schemes. According to research, among lighting systems, public lighting systems (PLSs) have significant potential for such energy projects. It can be realized through smart dimming, installing light-emitting diode (LED) luminaries, using renewable energy, etc. Accordingly, this work reviews the E-saving, E-efficiency, and E-cost reduction schemes for real-world PLSs by giving related techno-economic formulation. In this regard, smart control/dimming approaches via combined Internet of Things and wireless technologies, installing LED luminaires, optimal layout design, reactive power compensation, etc., are discussed by reporting the saving potentials, the payback period of the investment, and carbon reduction effects. Moreover, the use of renewable energy (including photovoltaic panels, wind turbines, pump- as -turbine systems, biomass plants, etc.) integrated with batteries to power PLSs is discussed by giving the E-cost reduction potential. Moreover, the pros/cons of previous works, the key findings of this review work, and recommendations for future works are outlined. This work shows future research directions, identifies high-potential energy projects for energy planners, and outlines the importance of renewable energy in making PLSs more environmentally friendly. Moreover, the role of energy policymakers' financial support in expediting the widespread enforcement of energy projects is outlined by studying the payback period of projects, which is about 5–7 years (on average 5.8 years, 6.9 years, 4.9 years, and 5.6 years for E-saving, E-efficiency, combined E-saving/E-efficiency, and E-cost reduction schemes, respectively). [Display omitted] • In-depth literature review of energy policies in real-world public lighting systems. • Current and critical solutions for energy saving and efficiency. • The role of renewable/battery systems in powering public lighting. • The importance of LED lighting and smart control in reducing carbon emissions. • Pros and cons of the previous works, and key findings of the study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]