What Problems Still Exist in Urban Street Lighting?

With the continuous increase in investment in public infrastructure and the nationwide implementation of the Urban Glory Project, urban street lights have continued to increase in both quantity and type, bringing unprecedented challenges to urban street lighting management.

The construction of urban street lights is an important part of urban infrastructure, but there are still many deficiencies in the management of urban street lamp lighting. For example: street lights in some road sections cannot be adjusted regularly with the changes of the four seasons; street lamp lighting in some road sections cannot be repaired or replaced in time. Some deficiencies in urban lighting management will inevitably cause unnecessary waste, especially energy waste. Therefore, street lamp managers should always pay attention to how to meet actual needs, solve existing deficiencies in a targeted manner, strengthen the synergistic guarantee effect of new technology application mechanism, organizational mechanism and management mechanism, and insist on improving the efficiency of street lamp use and reducing the late stage. Efforts should be made to reduce the burden of operation and maintenance and avoid waste of resources.

1. Problems in the maintenance and management of urban street lights

1.1 Focus on construction and neglect maintenance, and there are management problems

1.1.1 The problem of imperfect street lamp management mechanism and system still exists

In some projects, the phenomenon of focusing on construction, ignoring maintenance, and ignoring management is still rela

tively common. In particular, due to the lack of maintenance and management work in the later period, it is difficult to maintain the lighting rate and lighting effect of some projects at the level before acceptance for a long time after project acceptance. The reason is that there is a lack of institutional guarantees and management talents in the maintenance and management of facilities, which has led to prominent problems such as difficulty in implementing lighting facility maintenance responsibilities, finding specific responsible units, and mastering high-end street lamp maintenance technology.

For example, in work, management responsibility units are often divided according to the types of functional street lights, resulting in street lights, roads and bridges, or other management responsible entities, which will naturally lead to multiple policies, unclear responsibilities and powers, and mutual buck-passing, etc. question. The street lamp maintenance work in the same area may belong to different management units. What's more, the street lamp maintenance work in the same area is divided into multiple units such as street lamp department and road bridge department. In these units, disadvantages such as fuzzy management, overlapping responsibilities, and slow implementation of street lighting maintenance work occur from time to time, and it is difficult to guarantee the safety of surrounding residents when traveling at night.

1.1.2 Poor communication mechanism and lack of effective communication channels between departments

Under normal circumstances, the urban street lamp construction management unit and the urban street lamp management and maintenance unit after project acceptance are often not the same unit, or even not under the jurisdiction of the same department. Under such circumstances, it is difficult for the construction responsible party and the operation and maintenance responsible party to establish an effective communication channel between departments, and it is difficult to establish a smooth communication mechanism, let alone realize the intercommunication and sharing of street lamp management information. In the current bidding system, the party responsible for urban street lamp construction often wins the bid through a low-price bidding strategy. In this case, the construction responsible party sometimes sacrifices some project quality in the process of pursuing its own profits, for example, it will make compromises in terms of energy saving and life of street lights; sometimes it is difficult to accurately grasp the economic and social benefits of street lamp projects Sometimes even completely disregarding the social benefits brought by the urban street lamp construction project, lowering the construction standard without authorization, choosing street lamp products with outdated appearance design and poor urban lighting effect.

From the perspective of the management unit in charge of operation and maintenance in the later stage, some units still have problems such as unspecific street lamp inspection workflow, inconsistent daily maintenance and operation standards of street lights, imperfect management mechanism and low work efficiency. In addition, the contradiction between the surge in the scale of urban street lighting construction and the relatively limited operation and maintenance capabilities of management units also makes it difficult to stabilize the performance of urban street lighting, the maintenance and management work in the later period cannot keep up, and the lighting rate and lighting effect are difficult to maintain normal for a long time important reason for the level.

1.1.3 The problem of lack of supervision mechanism for street lighting operation and maintenance still exists

In some sections of the city, especially in small and medium-sized cities, street lighting supervision still uses manual inspection as the main means. Backward regulatory means lead to the absence of a regulatory mechanism for street lighting operation and maintenance. For example, individual lawbreakers stole street lighting supporting facilities in places that cannot be supervised by manual inspections, resulting in low lighting rates and poor lighting effects in individual road sections.

1.2 Emphasis on image, despise planning, and hidden dangers in quality

At this stage, out of the consideration of perfectly presenting the image of the city, the night scene lighting in some cities is too bright, lacks a reasonable demonstration process, and even does not pay attention to scientific planning. This phenomenon is manifested in the following two aspects. On the one hand, too much emphasis on image. Some areas that do not need night scene lighting are very bright, but areas that urgently need night scene lighting are very dim. On the other hand, there is a lack of scientific planning. The primary and secondary of urban lighting planning are unclear, the characteristics are unclear, and the layout is scattered and messy. Under the extensive planning concept, the street lamp planning of some road sections did not consider the actual needs of alternate operation such as midnight lights, all-night lights, and alternate lights. In addition, due to too much emphasis on the image of the city's night scene, in the process of street lamp procurement, some departments tend to have good lighting effects and good image street lights, not only ignoring the factors of energy saving of street lights, but also ignoring the service life of street lights and the quality of street lights.

1.3 Emphasis on brightness, less energy saving, and light pollution

At this stage, many cities in our country have the problem of focusing on brightness and ignoring energy saving in urban lighting, which is more prominent in the selection of lights for street lighting in main urban areas. For example, due to over-emphasis on lighting effects, new lights(such as LED solar lights) are not used as the main lighting equipment, resulting in many areas still mainly using outdated, high-energy-consuming high-pressure sodium lights, while those low-energy lights are only used. in individual pilot sections. At the same time, overemphasizing the brightness of street lighting may also cause light pollution. For example, in China, the national standard for the average illuminance of urban arterial roads in the main urban area is 30 lx, that is to say, the brightness of the main road lighting should not exceed this value, and the average value of street lighting in the main urban area should not be higher than This value is acceptable. However, according to reports, the average illuminance of road surfaces in some cities has reached 105 lx, which not only causes energy waste, but also causes urban light pollution.

1.4 Emphasis on landscape, despise function, there is a problem of waste

At present, the street lighting projects in some cities in our country overemphasize the landscape effect. The basic principle that lighting engineering projects should adhere to should be: taking into account the aesthetics while meeting the functional requirements of lighting. However, in some urban lighting projects, there is often a phenomenon of putting the cart before the horse, focusing on the landscape effect of street lights, while ignoring the basic attributes of street lights in terms of lighting brightness, energy consumption, and lifespan. This phenomenon sometimes causes a certain waste of energy and resources, which should arouse the attention of relevant departments.

2. Optimization measures for the management and maintenance of urban street lights

2.1 Improve the maintenance mechanism and attach importance to team building

Unclear responsibilities and rights are often one of the key factors that lead to difficulties in the maintenance of urban street lights. Implementing responsibilities, strengthening communication, and decentralizing powers are effective ways to manage chaos in maintenance work. For example, the government should take the lead in clarifying the responsibilities of inter-departmental street lamp management and maintenance, and establish a street lamp maintenance mechanism, an inter-departmental communication mechanism, and an employee training mechanism. In addition, relevant departments should attach importance to the establishment of a professional talent team with a clear division of labor for street lamp maintenance, and effectively improve the quality of urban street lamp maintenance.

2.2 Emphasis on rigid planning and emphasis on quality control

On the one hand, in the planning process, not only the project construction itself must be considered, but also how to carry out post-operation and maintenance work should be fully considered. The operation and maintenance work should be carried out from the source of the planning and design of the project and run through it. For example, for a new project, at the beginning of regional planning, the street lamp management department in the region should be able to obtain relevant planning information in a timely manner and establish a construction report file. During the construction process of new projects, the relevant street lamp management department should intervene in a timely manner, and combine the construction application files and project design schemes for quality tracking, and file relevant information. For another example, for the expansion project, the planning must be based on the actual situation. Not only must the actual conditions related to all projects within the scope of the project be carefully surveyed, but special attention must also be paid to the survey of existing cables and pipelines. Therefore, rigid planning must be achieved, and immeasurable losses cannot be caused by blind construction. On the other hand, the quality of maintenance work is inseparable from the level of project quality control. In particular, in the bidding stage, the bidding documents should be written in strict accordance with the relevant technical regulations for the construction and management of street lighting projects, and the relevant technical indicators should be clarified. For example, during the construction phase of the project, the relevant departments in charge of street lamp operation and maintenance management should be given the power to track and monitor quality.

2.3 Realize intelligent control, pay attention to energy saving and environmental protection

If funds permit, install GPS positioning systems and security anti-theft systems for street lamp cables, street lamp box transformers, and LED solar batteries to reduce the inconvenience caused to people's travel and the loss of national property caused by man-made damage and theft. While saving energy, it can also effectively curb the problem of theft. Every year, there are accidents such as stolen and cut street lamp lines, lost street lamp ballasts, and even stolen street lamp boxes, causing great property losses. Government departments should consider large-scale promotion of new energy-saving and environmentally friendly lights, which can not only reduce the cost of urban lighting, achieve energy saving, but also solve the problem of theft.

For the problem of light pollution, focus on the prevention and control of light pollution caused by the pollution of light sources and lighting fixtures. For example, formulate a reasonable maintenance management system, repair faulty lights in a timely manner, regularly replace light sources that have expired and have reduced luminous flux, and maintain power supply lines in a timely manner. Reasonable maintenance of light sources and lighting fixtures to increase luminous flux can not only solve the problem of energy waste, but also solve the disadvantages of light pollution. By cleaning the lighting fixtures frequently to remove the dust and dirt on the surface of the lighting fixtures, the average illuminance can be greatly improved and good lighting effects can be achieved with only a small amount of money.

2.4 Update the control device and pay attention to practical value

At this stage, the "three-remote" control device is a relatively advanced means of street lamp control technology. With the help of this type of automatic control device, on the basis of ensuring normal lighting effects, relevant departments can carefully conduct full research on the lighting needs of each road night scene, and Combined with objective factors such as weather, seasons, and differences in day and night time, relevant street lights are turned on and off in a timely manner, and the brightness of street lights is adjusted in real time.

In addition, the "three remote" control device can give full play to the practical value of street lights. This kind of control device can control the use mode, frequency and duration of double headlights, multi-headlights, double row lights and all-night lights in real time. Especially in the second half of the night, through automatic control, only one lamp head can be kept for two-headlights and multi-headlights. , Only keep a single row of lights for lighting, and turn "all night lights" into "mid night lights".