Despite that the energy-saving effect of LED road lighting applications has been recognized and accepted by the market, there are also some criticism and bad comments, including over-bright light sources, serious glare, low product quality, etc.. The State General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine (AQSIQ) has recent released a related research report: the quality pass rate of existing road lights in our country is only 58.3%, even lower for LED road lighting applications.

 

 

Take glare for instance, it will cause eye fatigue and discomfort. Long-term exposed to intense glare even cause damages to our brain. According to the researchers of Philips, glare is the hostile part of the brightness distribution on our visual field, or extreme brightness contrast in space, which causes visual discomfort and reduces the visibility. Imaging a bright spot in the dark field, which makes our eyes difficult to adapt and focus and cause glare, eye fatigue and discomfort.

 

With the development of LED street lighting industry, more and more manufacturers for LED road lighting applications started to realize the importance of standards, reasonable lighting distribution, visual comfort and user experience. How to overcome these shortcomings became a particularly urgent issue.

 

Philips carried out a series of studies and researches about glare problems among high-powered LED lighting products, trying to find out reasonable solutions to solve this problem. Color temperature significantly impacts the people’s perception on the glare. Two beams of light with the same output luminous flux, the light with lower color temperature (warm white) will cause less discomfort to our eyes compared with the light with higher color temperature (cool white). One possible reason is that people have preferences on color temperature and brightness. In dim conditions, people prefer warm white color (like dawn, right and dusk), while in bight conditions, people prefer cool white (like daytime).

 

Researchers from Philips also discovered that the light intensity of light that captured by eyeballs is another important factor leading to glare. For most LED road lighting applications, 80%-90% light could be evenly distributed on the road. But there are still 10%-20% light inevitably dispersed on the edge of the road. A seemingly reasonable approach is to limit the beam on the road, which is also believed as an effective method to reduce glare. However, this edge light is far more useful than it seems like. This part of LED Panel Light could improve the comfort of drivers’ eyes, enabling them to rapid response.

The American Austin City Police Department and Austin Energy Board cooperated recently to provide more protections to their residents. Since 2011, the crime rate of Austin was significant increased. In order to control this phenomenon, these two institutions planned to installed LED road lighting applications at three most dangerous places in Austin.

 

 

Austin Energy spokesman Carlos Cordova announced that “criminals do not like to commit offenses in broad daylight and also in well-lit places. They do not want to be seen when they do bad things.”

 

According to the requirements of local Police Department, Austin Energy erected 25 pieces LED street lights in three “most dangerous places”. “LED lights are more energy efficient. That is the reason why at the same power consuming level, LED lights send out more light than other traditional lamps.” It has also been proved that, places that installed LED road lighting applications are much brighter than before. Cordova also said that “in good lighting environment, people can enjoy their recreational activities, need not to worry about security issues.”

 

The test results of the 8^th and the 9^th Avenue were really satisfactory. It seems that urban lighting projects also became one of a series of policies against urban crime. From 2011 to the early of 2012, the violent crime rate of Austin grew by 15%. But by July, 5 months after LED street lights have been installed, the violent crime rate only grew by 7.8%. The local government indicated that they were planning an even larger LED-technology involved city lighting project, in which around 70,000 pieces LED lamps will be updated. This project will still be conducted by Austin Energy and supported by the local government.

 

This new LED lighting products can reduce the crime rate effectively. Japan is the first country that applied this technology to reduce the exaggerated urban crime rate. At first, these lamps have been named as LED guard lights, gradually replaced traditional fluorescent lamps and were installed in narrow streets. Besides, it has been proved that blue-rays can make people calm down. Some LED guard lights would be made in blue light.

 

In the mean time, City of Pontiac, Michigan, USA also replaced some of their traditional road lamps with LED street lights. Totally 112 pieces LED street lamps (approximated $68,3800) were used.