Street Lighting: Adding More Security to Our Life

For most people, their perception of street lights may just be that the lights are turned off during the day and start to light up at a certain time at night to illuminate the city roads. Yes, the main function of street lights is to provide lighting for dark nights. In fact, in my opinion, the main function of street lights is to increase our sense of security at night.

In the days when there were no street lights, after the sun went down, the land was dark and gloomy. No one wanted to go out at that time, not only because there was no entertainment, but also because of insecurity. Under the shady scene, the beasts and humans crimes were often very scary. However, it is precisely because of the appearance of street lights that we can see the environment clearly at night and no longer feel scared.

Since its appearance and development, street lighting have not only provided us with illumination, but become a combination of light and art through continuous exploration and innovation of mankind. Street lighting has gone through the development process from fire, oil to electricity, and at the same time, lighting methods have experienced countless changes, from the first torch lighting to the use of animal fat to ignite the lighting, and then to the later lighting tools of industrial products using kerosene, and finally reached the pinnacle of the history of human development, using electricity to create light. It has also emerged that we are familiar with thermal radiation light sources, gas discharge light sources and the most popular solid-state light-emitting technology of today.

A brief history of street lights

Street lights first originated in London, England in 1417. The purpose was to brighten the dark night of London in winter. At that time, the Mayor of London ordered lights to be hung outside for lighting. This was the initial form of street lights.

In 1558, a container with pine resin or wooden slats was installed on the streets of Paris, and the pine resin or wooden slats were lit when it was dark. In 1667, Louis XIV, known as the ″Sun King″, officially promulgated the city road lighting decree, and street lights were hung on the streets of Paris. The reign of Louis XIV is called the ″Era of Light″ in French history.

In 1806, the streets of Baltimore City in the United States began to use steam lighting.

In 1842, an arc lamp appeared in Paris, and it was soon used on the streets.

In 1878, the British J.W. Swan first proposed the use of carbon incandescent lamps.

In 1932, the Dutch began to use low-pressure sodium lamps to illuminate the streets.

In 1935, the high-pressure mercury lamp was invented.

In 1965, high-pressure sodium lamps came out and were used for road lighting.

In the 21st century, the rapid advancement of technology has made various new types of lighting spring up like bamboo shoots after a rain, from incandescent lamps, an electric light source that energizes and heats the filament to an incandescent state and uses its thermal radiation to emit visible light, to high-pressure sodium lamps that are still used occasionally, and then to the light emitting diode (LED) who has excellent brightness and energy-saving effect as well as widely used and to the clean, pollution-free and renewable green solar street light which is launched in response to the social energy-saving and environmental protection requirements.

Nowadays, with the widespread application of new-generation information technologies such as the Internet of Things, the Internet, and cloud computing, smart cities have undoubtedly become a hot stream, and smart street lights have become the main development trend of future smart cities. Smart street lights have lots of functions such as automatically adjusting brightness according to traffic flow, remote lighting control, air quality detection, real-time monitoring, wireless WIFI, car charging piles, smart broadcasting, main fault alarm, lamp cable anti-theft, remote meter reading and other functions. This help save power resources and improve the level of public lighting management.

Main classification of street lights

For a long time, the design of street lights has been diverse and each has its own characteristics. At the same time, street lamps also have many classifications:

1. Classified by height: High pole light, middle pole light, road light, courtyard light, lawn light, underground light.

2. Classified by light pole material: Hot-dip galvanized iron street light, hot-dip galvanized steel street light and stainless steel street light.

3. Classified by light source: Sodium light street light, LED street light, energy-saving street light, xenon street light.

4. Classified by shape: Chinese light, antique light, landscape light, single-arm street light, double-arm street light.

5. Classified by power supply mode: City circuit lights, solar street lights, wind and solar hybrid street lights.

There is no doubt that street lights illuminate our way forward, make our living environment safer, and make our lifestyle more convenient and colorful.