Japan’s railway enterprises have applied themselves to energy-saving area for many years. Compared with other transportations, transportation energy consumption per capita of railways is the lowest one. For instance, transportation energy consumption per capita of the Shinkansen is only 1/25 of that of aircrafts. In order to achieve a more environment friendly effect, the Japan Government decided to replace all traditional railway lighting systems with railway LED lighting technology.
Take Ginza Line “1000” for example. In order to improve the ride comfort, designers increased the output power of air conditions within compartments. Meanwhile installed 17-inch widescreen LCDs to improve the audience effect. After strengthening these functions, the total power consumption of the entire trains grew up numerously. Thus, Ginza Line “1000” adapted a series of technologies with more powerful energy-saving functions. One of them is railway LED lighting technology. Tokyo Metro explained that it is the first time that LED lighting technology was employed in railways in the human history. They also indicated that LED lights would be continued to applied in other public transportations, such like subways, buses, and even some taxies.
The new installed LED head lights for trains are only 32W each with two other assisted lamps, which are 16W each. But they provided equivalent brightness to previously used 150W high pressure sodium head lamps. Compartment lights also guaranteed the brightness that equal to or larger than the previously used fluorescent tubes but consumed only 40% of them. The average service life of compartment lamps is around 40000 hours, which is 3.5 times of traditional fluorescent tubes.
Beyond that, designers from Tokyo Metro also needed to take railway stations and other ancillary facilities into account. How to effectively reduce the power consumption is as important as that for trains.
Presently, in order to cope with the income reduction caused by the low birth rate and the aging problem, Japan’s railway operators engaged in transportation business and meanwhile strived to expand non-transportation business. The ongoing activities included additional shops and other commercial facilities in stations, enlarged the digital signage and improved the high-speed communication network. The power consumption of these facilities occupied an increasing proportion of the total power consuming. Station power consuming accounted for approximately 20% of the commercial power arrangement of rail operators. In order to prevent this trend, rail operators started to apply photovoltaic system and railway LED lighting technology on stations.