Skip to main content

San Diego to deploy smart streetlights

The City of San Diego, California, is partnering with GE to upgrade streetlights in a bid to reduce energy costs by 60 per cent as well as transform them into a connected digital network that can optimise parking and traffic, enhance public safety and track air quality. The City will be installing 3,200 smart sensor nodes that can use real-time anonymous sensor data to direct drivers to open parking spaces, help first responders during emergencies, track carbon emissions and identify intersections that c
February 24, 2017 Read time: 2 mins
The City of San Diego, California, is partnering with GE to upgrade streetlights in a bid to reduce energy costs by 60 per cent as well as transform them into a connected digital network that can optimise parking and traffic, enhance public safety and track air quality.

The City will be installing 3,200 smart sensor nodes that can use real-time anonymous sensor data to direct drivers to open parking spaces, help first responders during emergencies, track carbon emissions and identify intersections that can be improved for pedestrians and cyclists.

The anonymous information from the sensors can be used by developers to create apps and software that can benefit the community.

Additionally, the City will be replacing 14,000 streetlights with more energy efficient versions, which is expected to reduce energy costs by US$2.4 million annually. These streetlights include technology that allows for manually or automatically dimming and brightening in public venues, depending on natural light conditions.

The City expects the project to achieve an estimated 60 per cent reduction in energy. In addition to reducing overall greenhouse gas emissions, the streetlights are also intended to reduce light pollution.

An adaptive control system captures real time interval data, monitoring and notifications for maintenance purposes and also provides GPS coordinates at each fixture. Over the life of each fixture the system automatically ramps up power as needed to meet specified lighting standards.

Related Content

  • Making enforcement multi-functional
    June 23, 2016
    New enforcement equipment is coming onto the market apace, as Colin Sowman discovers. If there is one word that epitomises the current trend in enforcement technology then that word is consolidation: multi-function cameras, miniaturisation and combining radar and visual detection methods. One example is Turkish company Ekin Technology’s recently introduced Micro Plate is claimed to be the smallest licence plate recognition device. In addition to logging licence plate data, the system records speed, date, ti
  • Siemens delivers pedestrian countdown at traffic signals
    November 30, 2015
    First shown at Traffex 2015 in April, production of Siemens’ new Pedestrian Countdown at Traffic Signals (PCaTS) is now fully under way. PCaTS informs pedestrians how long they have to cross the road after the far-side green man signal has gone out. By providing a visible countdown of the time remaining before the appearance of the red man, PCaTS is intended to give pedestrians a better understanding of the time available to complete crossing, reducing anxiety once the green man is no longer displayed. B
  • Imtech awarded smart lighting project
    April 30, 2015
    Imtech Traffic & Infra has recently been awarded the contract to provide sustainable LED lighting for the Public Lighting project in the municipality of Texel in the Netherlands. Imtech will remove all public lighting outside the villages and replace it with passive and active markers. The active markers will be in the form of sustainable LED lighting in the roads, running on solar energy. The road surface will still remain visible, and the impact on the surrounding fauna is said to be zero/nil. Withi
  • Montreal invests in smart street lighting
    August 26, 2016
    Israeli smart city control applications provider Telematics Wireless is to supply its smart city technology for use in a new control and monitoring solution for 132,500 street lights in the City of Montreal, Canada, as part of a US$22 million (CA$28 million) contract awarded to engineering consultants Énergère for the supply and installation of an intelligent street lighting management solution. Telematics' solution will include its 7-pin external lighting control units (LCUs) and internal LCUs that will co