With increasing investment in public infrastructure and the nationwide implementation of urban lighting projects, the number and variety of urban streetlights has skyrocketed, posing unprecedented challenges to urban streetlight management.
While urban streetlight construction is a crucial component of urban infrastructure, its management still faces numerous shortcomings. For example, streetlights on some roads cannot be regularly adjusted to reflect seasonal changes; and streetlights on other roads are not repaired or replaced in a timely manner. These shortcomings in urban lighting management inevitably lead to unnecessary waste, particularly energy. Therefore, streetlight managers should constantly focus on meeting actual needs, address existing shortcomings in a targeted manner, strengthen the synergistic support of new technology application mechanisms, organizational mechanisms, and management mechanisms, and strive to improve streetlight efficiency, reduce the burden of ongoing operations and maintenance, and avoid resource waste.
I. Problems in Urban Streetlight Maintenance and Management
1.1 Emphasis on Construction Over Maintenance, Leading to Management Challenges
1.1.1 Inadequate Streetlight Management Mechanisms and Inadequate Systems Still Exist
In some projects, the phenomenon of prioritizing construction over maintenance and management remains widespread. In particular, due to inadequate post-project maintenance and management, some projects struggle to maintain pre-acceptance lighting performance and lighting effects for extended periods after project acceptance. This is due to a lack of mechanisms and management talent for facility maintenance management, leading to significant challenges such as difficulty in enforcing lighting facility maintenance responsibilities, identifying specific responsible units, and mastering advanced streetlight maintenance techniques.
For example, management responsibilities are often assigned based on the type of functional streetlights, resulting in the creation of streetlight departments, road and bridge departments, or other responsible entities. This naturally leads to multiple responsibilities, unclear responsibilities, and buck-passing. Streetlight maintenance work within the same area may be assigned to different management units. Even worse, streetlight maintenance work within the same area may be divided among multiple units, such as the streetlight department and road and bridge department. Within these units, problems such as unclear management, overlapping responsibilities, and slow implementation of streetlight maintenance are common, making it difficult for surrounding residents to travel safely at night.
1.1.2 Poor Communication Mechanisms and Lack of Effective Interdepartmental Communication Channels
Typically, the unit responsible for urban streetlight construction and the unit responsible for managing and maintaining the streetlights after project acceptance are often different entities, or even fall under the jurisdiction of different departments. This makes it difficult for construction and operation and maintenance parties to establish effective interdepartmental communication channels and smooth communication mechanisms, let alone the exchange and sharing of streetlight management information. Under the current bidding system, urban streetlight construction parties often win bids through low-price bidding strategies. In these circumstances, construction parties sometimes sacrifice project quality in pursuit of profit, for example, compromising on energy efficiency and longevity. They also struggle to accurately balance the economic and social benefits of streetlight projects. Sometimes, they even completely disregard the social benefits of urban streetlight construction projects, arbitrarily lowering construction standards and selecting streetlights with outdated designs and poor urban lighting effects.
From the perspective of management units responsible for subsequent operation and maintenance, some units still face issues such as unclear streetlight inspection workflows, inconsistent standards for daily streetlight maintenance, inadequate management mechanisms, and low efficiency. Furthermore, the conflict between the rapid growth of urban streetlight construction and the relatively limited operational and maintenance capabilities of management units is a major contributing factor to the difficulty in stabilizing urban streetlight performance, insufficient ongoing maintenance and management, and the difficulty in maintaining normal lighting rates and lighting effects over the long term.
1.1.3 The Lack of a Streetlight Operation and Maintenance Supervision Mechanism Remains
In some urban road sections, particularly in small and medium-sized cities, streetlight supervision still primarily relies on manual inspections. This outdated supervision method has led to a lack of a streetlight operation and maintenance supervision mechanism. For example, some criminals steal streetlight equipment in areas not covered by manual inspections, resulting in low lighting rates and poor lighting effects on certain sections of road.
1.2 Focusing on image over planning, leading to quality risks
Currently, driven by the need to present a perfect city image, some cities have excessively high nighttime lighting brightness, lacking a sound justification process and even neglecting scientific planning. This phenomenon manifests itself in two specific ways. First, there's an overemphasis on image. Some areas that don't really need nighttime lighting are brightly lit, while areas that desperately need it are dim. Second, there's a lack of scientific planning. Urban lighting planning lacks clear priorities, lacks specific features, and results in a scattered and disorganized layout. Under this crude planning approach, streetlight planning for some sections fails to consider the actual needs of alternating between midnight, full-time, and alternate-time lighting. Furthermore, due to an overemphasis on the city's nighttime image, some departments favor lighting with superior lighting performance and a better image during the streetlight procurement process, overlooking not only energy efficiency but also longevity and quality.
1.3 Focusing on brightness over energy conservation, leading to light pollution
Currently, many Chinese cities are experiencing a problem of prioritizing brightness over energy conservation in urban lighting. This is particularly evident in the selection of streetlights in major urban areas. For example, due to an overemphasis on lighting performance, newer lamps (such as LED solar lamps) have not been adopted as primary lighting equipment. As a result, many areas still rely primarily on outdated, energy-intensive high-pressure sodium lamps, while low-energy lamps are only used in pilot projects on selected sections of roads. Furthermore, overemphasizing streetlight brightness can also cause light pollution. For example, the national standard for average illuminance on major urban roads in major urban areas is 30 lx. This means that the average illuminance on major roads must not exceed this value, and the average streetlight brightness in major urban areas should be no higher than this value to meet the standard. However, it has been reported that the average illuminance on some urban roads has reached 105 lx, resulting in not only energy waste but also urban light pollution.
1.4 Emphasis on Landscape Over Functionality, Leading to Waste
Currently, street lighting projects in some Chinese cities overemphasize landscape effects. The fundamental principle that lighting projects should adhere to is aesthetics while meeting functional lighting requirements. However, some urban lighting projects often put the cart before the horse, prioritizing the landscape benefits of streetlights while neglecting their fundamental properties, such as brightness, energy consumption, and lifespan. This phenomenon can sometimes lead to a certain amount of energy and resource waste and warrants the attention of relevant departments.
II. Optimizing Urban Streetlight Management and Maintenance
2.1 Improving Maintenance Mechanisms and Emphasizing Team Building
Clear responsibilities and authorities are often a key factor hindering urban streetlight maintenance. Effective measures to address disorganized maintenance efforts include implementing accountability, strengthening communication, and delegating responsibilities and powers. For example, the government could take the lead in clarifying the responsibilities of various departments for streetlight management and maintenance, establishing mechanisms for streetlight maintenance, interdepartmental communication, and employee training. Furthermore, relevant departments should prioritize establishing a dedicated, professional team with clearly defined responsibilities for streetlight maintenance, ensuring the quality of urban streetlight maintenance is effectively improved.
2.2 Emphasize Rigid Planning and Quality Control
On the one hand, during the planning process, not only should the project itself be considered, but also how subsequent operations and maintenance will be carried out. Operations and maintenance should be integrated from the very beginning of project planning and design, and carried out throughout. For example, for new projects, at the outset of regional planning, the local streetlight management department should have timely access to relevant planning information and establish a construction application file. During the construction process, the relevant streetlight management department should intervene as appropriate, tracking quality based on the construction application file and the project design plan, and documenting relevant information. For another example, for expansion projects, planning must be based on on-site conditions. Not only should all relevant engineering details within the project scope be carefully surveyed, but existing cables and pipelines should also be given special attention. Therefore, rigid planning is essential, and blind construction should not lead to immeasurable losses.
On the other hand, the quality of maintenance work is inseparable from the level of project quality control. In particular, during the bidding phase, bidding documents should be drafted in strict accordance with the relevant technical regulations for the construction and management of street lighting projects, clearly defining relevant technical indicators. For example, during the construction phase, the relevant departments responsible for future streetlight operation and maintenance should be empowered to track and supervise quality.
2.3 Implementing Intelligent Control and Emphasizing Energy Conservation and Environmental Protection
If funding permits, GPS positioning systems and security and anti-theft systems should be installed on streetlight cables, streetlight transformers, and LED solar cells to reduce the inconvenience caused to the public and the loss of state property due to vandalism and theft. This will not only save energy but also effectively curb theft. Every year, incidents such as streetlight wiring being cut, streetlight ballasts being lost, and even streetlight transformers being stolen occur, resulting in significant property losses. Government departments should consider the widespread promotion of new energy-saving and environmentally friendly lamps. This will not only reduce urban lighting costs and achieve energy savings, but also address the problem of theft.
Regarding light pollution, a key focus should be on preventing and controlling light pollution caused by light sources and lighting fixtures. For example, establishing a sound maintenance and management system ensures timely repair of faulty lamps, regular replacement of expired or reduced luminous flux light sources, and timely maintenance of power supply lines. Proper maintenance of light sources and lighting fixtures increases luminous flux, not only addressing energy waste but also combating light pollution. Regular cleaning of lighting fixtures to remove dust and dirt can significantly increase average illumination and achieve excellent lighting results at a minimal cost.
2.4 Updating Control Devices and Emphasizing Practical Value
Currently, "three remote" control devices are a relatively advanced streetlight control technology. With these automated control devices, while ensuring normal lighting efficacy, relevant departments can thoroughly research the lighting needs of each road's nightscape. Taking into account objective factors such as weather, seasons, and daytime variations, they can appropriately turn on and off streetlights and adjust their brightness in real time.
Furthermore, "three remote" control devices can fully leverage the practical value of streetlights. This type of control device can control the usage, frequency, and duration of dual-head, multi-head, double-row, and all-night lights in real time. Especially in the latter half of the night, automatic control can be used to keep only one head of a dual-head or multi-head light, or a single row, illuminated, transforming "all-night" lighting into "midnight lighting."
III. Conclusion
In recent years, urban lighting projects have been implemented nationwide, and changes have been seen not only in the quantity and scale of urban streetlights, but also in the variety and quality. The ever-expanding scale of urban streetlights has posed unprecedented challenges to urban streetlight management. This article identifies the following issues in urban streetlight maintenance and management: First, an emphasis on construction over maintenance, resulting in management difficulties; second, an emphasis on image over planning, resulting in quality risks; third, an emphasis on brightness over energy conservation, resulting in light pollution; and fourth, an emphasis on aesthetics over functionality, resulting in waste. To address these four issues, optimization measures for urban streetlight management and management are proposed. Optimization measures primarily include: improving maintenance mechanisms and prioritizing team building; emphasizing rigid planning and quality control; implementing intelligent control and prioritizing energy conservation and environmental protection; and updating control devices and prioritizing practical value.
Currently, while streetlight performance in some Chinese cities falls short of expectations, causing unnecessary waste, quality issues, and light pollution, these problems can be effectively addressed by strengthening management, addressing existing shortcomings in a targeted manner, and enhancing the synergistic support of new technology application mechanisms, organizational mechanisms, and management mechanisms.
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