

Germany's Green Idea: Street Lighting on Demand - aswanson
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1907182,00.html

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imajes
Oh wow.

It's so nice to see news from years ago making it back as 'new' headlines.
Whatever.

Feedback for such schemes has been the following-

a: that people felt incredibly unsafe (especially women) and stopped going out
out night, regardless of being able to turn the lights on.

b: non locals, travelers, elderly people, disabled and so on can't use it
easily. period.

c: most street lights are high power sodium lights, which are (According to
wikipedia and other sources) one of, if not the most, efficient form of
distributing energy in the form of light. They also happen to have a fairly
significant startup time, so motion sensors wouldn't be very efficient. It's
not obvious that replacing with more efficient startup lamps and motion
sensors would help.

d: would you want to drive where your eyes would constantly have to re-dilate
as the lights come on?

e: i've seen some pilot programs that have photovoltaic collection plates on
top of street light stands, which collect energy during the day to activate
the light at night. Feels more like the future we've been looking for.

I'd much rather see policies which force office lights, computers and so on be
turned off at night (or face fines, etc) than street lights that work less
efficiently.

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buugs
The thing is it is a small village there are some things to think about:

elderly are not going to be walking about at night (there is probably much
much less crime concerning any women)

there won't be very many non locals except for visiting family

the lights were costing enough that there were blackouts in the morning

there wont be very many people driving at night

the solar would be a good idea if it was cheap

It isn't the greatest idea but if it has worked out well for a small village
good for them and their problem solving ability

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ryanwaggoner
This reminds me of a similar setup that I learned about during pilot training:
a lot of small untowered airports use a pilot-controlled runway lighting setup
that is controlled by pilots clicking their radios on a certain frequency to
turn on the runway lighting at night, adjust brightness, etc.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pilot_Controlled_Lighting>

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furyg3
Wow. Talk about over-engineering.

Seems like a button would have done the trick.

Put them at the ends of streets (or one on each lamppost, if you can afford
it) and have it turn on the lights for the street/block.

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Raphael
No man, motion sensors.

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heroin
That would just be more expensive and less reliable. buttons would do the
trick, except for the case you want to have lights on in the moment you are
leaving your house.

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Batsu
It's an interesting idea, but the town has only 9,000 people. I wonder how
this operation would work in a larger setting, or perhaps more importantly,
how it is safeguarded from abuse.

Also curious if there is an app for that...

Edit: on second thought, abuse might really be a non-issue, since the limit
for abuse isn't worse than what they had to deal with originally and text
message can be tracked with some ease.

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catch404
Great idea but all I can think of is the room for abuse for criminals. Easy to
break into cars in pitch black.

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donaldc
Nice. Ideally, with more cell phones getting GPS, eventually it'd be possible
to set up one's cell phone to communicate one's position to the central
lighting facility, and have it turn on the lights as I approach them, and off
the lights after I've passed them by.

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ojbyrne
Why not use motion sensors? I'm sure I've walked somewhere with them used for
streetlights.

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sven
Has someone thought about carrying an electric torch? Or display a white image
on your cellphone display to get light.

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andyking
That sounds like a _Viz_ top tip - "HACKERS: save money on torches by waving
your expensive, brightly-lit mobile around in front of you while walking down
the road in the dead of night."

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rokhayakebe
What happens when I visit a city using this system?

