Streetlight Improvement Project

Project Description:

The Philadelphia Streetlight Improvement Project (PSIP) will replace and connect the City’s 130,000 existing streetlighting with LED luminaires that will be controllable through a remote monitoring network. PSIP will reduce streetlighting energy use by more than 50 percent and is the single largest energy conservation project the City has undertaken, reducing municipal carbon emissions by more than 9 percent.

PSIP has been developed and designed to provide cleaner, greener, and safer streets in a cost-effective manner, while achieving the Vision Zero goal of improving nighttime visibility on Philadelphia’s streets for drivers, cyclists, and pedestrians by converting citywide streetlights to LED.

The project development phase incorporated significant efforts to obtain engagement from the community. This included the installation of sample fixtures in every district of the city to solicit the public’s feedback on their color temperature preferences and preferred amount of light. Live events were held at each installation, to receive direct feedback, promote the benefits of this project, and proactive addressing community concerns about LED streetlighting as part of this project. Members of the project team also attended numerous meetings of Registered Community Organizations and other local meetings to communicate the goals of the project, and to address any concerns raised. A website was established to provide information and background on the project, as well as provide responses to FAQs.

For further analysis based on community feedback, vendors provided samples of the proposed luminaires that the PSIP team evaluated for visual comfort e.g. glare. As a result of this glare assessment, an additional comfort feature – diffused optics – was selected for the luminaires – in addition to the 3000k warmer color temperature fixtures – to help reduce the brightness of the LED source without significantly impacting performance. Additionally, using traffic, crime, social and economic data, as well public safety initiatives such at 57 Blocks, streets that scored high on these evaluation criteria were prioritized for higher or “boosted” levels of streetlight illumination using the lighting management system.

To ensure the fixtures selected were designed and deployed appropriately based on their location, prototypical samples of each cobrahead lighting application were developed using city GIS databases, aerial imagery, and the results of the field audit to provide dimensionally accurate input data for use with the photometric analysis software. The input data critical to the modeling task included roadway, driveway, and intersection widths, light pole placements and spacings, light pole heights, mast arm lengths, road surface composition and reflectance, and quantities of light poles per typical intersection. As a result, 28 typical roadway applications were identified and used to determine the appropriate fixture, and design parameters that will best focus the light where it is needed.

Upon the completion of the 2-year installation period, the City of Philadelphia will have a customized, controllable streetlight system that results in and annual savings of approximately 37M kWh of energy, 11k tons of CO2 emissions, and $8M in energy and operations & maintenance costs.