TAG | smart cities
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Helsinki’s smart street lights will find you a parking place
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The pilot deployment uses miniature video cameras mounted on the luminaires to monitor parking spaces
THE CITY of Helsinki has installed internet-connected street lights which find motorists a parking place.
The pilot deployment uses miniature Internet-Protocol video cameras mounted on the luminaires to monitor the spaces. These cameras generate data which is interpreted by cloud-based image analytics to assess if the parking space is available. This real-time parking occupancy information can then be pushed to city authorities and motorists. Additionally, this data can be shared with third-party app developers.
A micro camera from Super Circuits similar to the ones deployed in the Helsinki smart parking experiment. The increasing miniaturisation of video cameras means they can easily be incorporated in both outdoor and indoor lighting. Manufacturers say that as prices fall, they could replace passive infra-devices so that, for instance, instead of knowing if a meeting room is occupied, as a PIR can detect, a video camera could be used to determine exactly how many people are present.
It’s also part of a wider programme in which the Public Works Department of the City of Helsinki is considering using public lighting as a potential backbone for Internet of Things services.
Parking is considered a potential killer app for so-called smart cities. Studies in San Francisco have shown that 30 per cent of the traffic congestion in cities is caused by drivers spending time searching for a parking spot, so reducing this time can lower air pollution and traffic noise. Additionally, knowing the location and quantity of parking spaces can help cities cut down on illegal parking and develop a dynamic pricing structure based on use and occupancy data.
Continuous tracking of parking spaces also helps identify parking bottlenecks and offers a means to enable traffic guidance. In the future, outdoor luminaires could provide light indications, making it easy to identify open parking places on city streets.
Philips says the initiative has provided Helsinki with first-hand information about the suitability of video technology for smart parking and helped the city gain valuable insights into how this type of monitoring can be deployed. The company estimates that lighting-based parking management can reduce average parking search time by 40 per cent, reduces average traffic in terms of miles per day by 30 per cent and improve safety by reducing parking spot searches.
The lighting industry sees huge potential in street lighting becoming the digital backbone of smart cities. Trials are currently being conducted into the use of public luminaires to deliver Wi-Fi as well as monitor the use of firearms and the levels of snow.
See LED street lighting at Novel Energy Lighting
dynamic smart parking · Helsinki · led street lights · Novel Energy Lighting · philips lighting · smart cities · smart street lights
The smart city revolution shows no signs of slowing down, and the opportunities for the lighting industry are ripe for the taking. In the run up to Lux’s Lighting Fixture Design Conference, which will run from the 21 to the 22nd of February in Central London, they reveal their top five smart cites, where lighting is allowing city authorities to reimagine how our population centres are managed.
5) Los Angeles
Los Angeles is currently seeing through a plan to replace every old sodium-vapour streetlight with smart LED fixtures. The city is now 80 percent of the way through the project, which has seen the conversion of nearly 200,000 street lights. The project has saved the city over nine million dollars and has acted to reduce crime.
The existing streetlight poles are being replaced with ‘smartpoles’, which are fitted with 4G LTE wireless technology and act to improve phone reception in the tightly packed city. The smart street lights are also capable of alerting city authorities when a fixture breaks down and is need of repair and some are also able to monitor and compile analytics on traffic levels and the availability of parking places.
As we reported last year some Los Angeles street lights are able to use sensors to listen out for car crashes, reporting them to the emergency services when they occur.
Singapore is aiming to become the world’s first ‘smart nation’. Sensors and cameras are being installed to track absolutely everything from traffic to the capacity of wastepaper bins.
In Singapore lighting plays a role in the city’s incredibly smart transport network, which utilises road sensors, smart traffic lights and smart parking.
Late last year Philips Lighting announced a partnership with the Sentosa Development Corporation to develop a connected streetlight management system on Singapore’s island resort of Sentosa.
It was also recently announced that visible light communication (VLC) is being installed in the massive CapitaLand Mall to create an indoor positioning system that allows shoppers to find their favourite stores amid the mall’s labyrinth of aisles and corridors.
The authorities in Singapore have also joined forces with Scottish Li-Fi firm pureLifi, in an attempt to bring the revolutionary technology to the South-Asian city-state.
Copenhagen is already one of the world’s most sustainable and smart cities and it aims to become carbon neutral by the year 2025. Nearly half of the city’s street lights were replaced recently with LED. A number of these new fixtures form the backbone of a growing smart lighting network.
The LED streetlights brighten when vehicles approach and then dim after they pass, ensuring that roads are not continuously illuminated when it is not necessary. This is a safer option than turning off streetlights altogether in order to save money, which has been the case in the UK.
The sensor-laden light fixtures are also able to capture data and analytics and are able to help coordinate the city’s services. For example, fixtures can alert city authorities that waste bins need to be emptied.
San Francisco was arguably one of the first smart cities in the world and given its location, near Silicon Valley, this should hardly be surprising.
The city has more LEED-certified buildings than any other in the United States and a connected city initiative enables residents to locate parking places.
It was recently announced that 18,500 of San Francisco’s light-pressure sodium street light fixtures would be replaced with smart LEDs.
The new LEDs will be run via wireless smart controllers that will allow the city to remotely monitor individual light performance and adjust the intensity of the lights as required. For example, if there was a road traffic incident, the lights could be turned up.
The lights will also warn city authorities when fixtures fail or burn out, making lives better for residents, whilst saving the city money.
San Francisco’s new street lights will be powered with 100 percent clean energy, which, along with the wireless controls, will make them the greenest street lights in California.
Barcelona is renowned the world over for its smart city prowess. Boxes fitted to lampposts host finely tuned computer systems, which are able to measure traffic levels, road pollution, crowds and even the number of photographs on a particular street posted on Instagram.
Sensors fitted to streetlights and in the ground are also used to monitor the weather in Barcelona.
A few years ago the city suffered a very severe drought and came very close to running out of water altogether. As a result, smart sensors measure rainfall and analyse irrigation levels in the ground. This information is then used to modify the city’s sprinkler system to save water.
Barcelona has made the sensor it developed, Sentilo, available on the internet, meaning that city planers from around the world can study Barcelona’s smart city ventures and use the results as inspiration for their own projects.
led lighting · led streetlights · Novel Energy Lighting · smart cities · smart led streetlight · visible light communication · wireless street lights
The LED revolution has concluded, prices are falling and the industry’s attention is turning to the digital world, to the internet of things and smart cities.
In a Lux Today special edition, we examine smart cities and ask how is lighting improving our urban environments? Why are more and more cities adopting smart technology? And why does the lighting industry need to move quickly to take advantage of this new innovation?
data collection · li-fi · Novel Energy Lighting · philips citytouch · smart cities · smart street lights · visible light communication
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Philips Lighting @ L+B 2016 – Experience light beyond illumination
Comments off · Posted by admin in LED, Philips LED
Philips Lighting showcased truly pioneering lighting innovations at Light + Building 2016, the world’s leading trade fair for lighting in Frankfurt, Germany.
Philips brought together leading experts to inspire and engage fellow professionals as part of their speaker program at light+building.
Connected lighting in smart cities
Delivering smart buildings
New technology trends and their impact on LED luminaires
We’ve captured these insightful talks in a series of videos – so if you couldn’t make it to the show, here’s your chance to catch up on what you missed.
connected lighting · iot · LED technology · light and building 2016 · Novel Energy Lighting · philips led · philips lighting · smart buildings · smart cities
Smart cities are happening and they will transform exterior lighting companies into flexible, high technology electronics suppliers.
That’s the view of Fadi Shanaah, general manager of Schreder’s operations in the Middle East. He believes that, like the rapid adoption of LEDs, smart cities will become a reality faster than people expect.
‘How fast depends on the region. We’re lucky that the UAE has made big steps towards adopting the technology. Dubai, for instance, is moving quickly thanks to the backing of Sheikh Mohammad and there are people now who are driving it. At the moment it’s at the high-level stage and what’s missing is the detail. But in the coming months and years you’ll start to see those high-level concepts translated into useful technologies that will benefit you and me.’
He believes safety, security and connectivity are the key roles that intelligent lighting will play in smart cities.
‘It’s really exciting – but it’s challenging too. The technology has changed completely so for a lighting company that means moving from being a traditional lamps and luminaires company into become an electronics manufacturer. That means changing your R&D and even changing your people. In Schreder we’re use the phrase ‘beyond lighting’.
‘Look at the big players – Philips, GE and Osram – having to sell their lamps businesses, as that model is dying. They need to change and they need to change quickly because the transition to LED and electronics is happening faster than than people thought.’
Schreder will be exhibiting its first major luminaire range targeting the smart city market at LuxLive Middle East 2016 in Abu Dhabi in April. Shuffle is an ‘integrated smart city luminaire’ with features such as wi-fi, security cameras, public-address speakers, air-quality sensors and electric-car chargers.
It’s really exciting – but it’s very challenging too as it means we need to change our businesses fundamentally”
He believes the low-power wide-area standard LoRa – an open protocol currently being adopted by Cisco and IBM among others – could be a possible candidate for data transfer between street lights in a smart city. Schreder has its own Zigbee-based proprietary system, but Shanaah believes that lighting companies will have to adopt whatever technology gains currency in the smart city landscape.
‘Each city has slightly different priorites and technologies and each will move at its own pace,’ says Shanaah. ‘But there’s no doubt that smart citi
lifi · Novel Energy Lighting · smart cities · smart lighting · smart luminaires
