This study reviews possibilities for making public lighting more economical efficient: how can its benefits (including one such as comfort and feeling safer) be increased and its costs reduced. The study consists of two parts: (1) a state of the art report regarding the effectiveness and efficiency of public lighting as a traffic safety measure. The effectiveness of public lighting is mainly expressed in terms of reduction of accidents and crimes whereby subjective safety is important as well. The paper shows, for example, that on urban main roads a reduction in the number of injury accidents at night can be expected to be about 30%, provided that the lighting is improved considerably; (2) partly based on this state of the art review, the following are recommended as topics for future research: (i) aspects related to the whole traffic system and not specifically to lighting; (ii) fundamental aspects of lighting, such as the driving and the visual task; and (iii) topics related to the technical realization of lighting. More accident studies are also needed in the future, in particular in relationship to the level of public lighting on roads inside built-up areas.
Abstract