01557044

Component

On-demand roadway lighting can reduce energy usage while maintaining or increasing vehicle and pedestrian safety. On-demand roadway lighting incorporates two new technologies: connected-vehicle technology and solid-state lighting. Using connected-vehicle technology, vehicles share their position, heading, and speed, so they can be tracked across the roadway infrastructure. Solid-state lighting can be quickly turned on, off, and dimmed as needed. Researchers from the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute (VTTI) have integrated those technologies to create an experimental lighting system that senses vehicles and turns on roadway lighting only when needed. The goal of the test system was to enable human-factors research on on-demand lighting. The system, is installed on a one mile segment of the Virginia Smart Road, is operational with multiple vehicles traveling up to 89 km/h (55 mph), and is ready for performance characterization and human-subjects research. Although dimming and response to weather and other traffic conditions are possibilities for adaptive-lighting systems, they were outside of the scope of this project. A main application for an on-demand lighting system would be on roadways with little traffic at night.

This paper was sponsored by TRB committee AND40 Visibility.

01550057

15-4403

English

13p

2015

Transportation Research Board 94th Annual Meeting

Digital/other

Figures; Photos; References; Tables

Adaptive control; Mobile communication systems; Street lighting; Technological innovations

Design; Highways; I21: Planning of Transport Infrastructure

Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting 2015 Paper #15-4403

TRIS, TRB, ATRI

Dec 30 2014 1:27PM