According to the prevailing road lighting guidelines, roads and streets in urban areas should be equipped with road lighting, while roads outside of urban areas normally do not need to be equipped with road lighting. Vägar och gators utformning (VGU) contains guidelines that are mandatory for public roads but advisory for municipality roads and streets. The need of road lighting on public roads outside of urban areas has been discussed between the road authorities, i.e. the Swedish Transport Administration and the municipalities. The aim of this study is to produce a proposal of new criteria for use of road lighting on public roads in and in connection to smaller populated areas in the countryside. This has mainly been done by a literature review of guidelines and research studies about road users’ needs and the effect of road lighting, as well as through interviews with persons responsible for road lighting in Swedish municipalities. A list containing possible criteria was compiled and discussed at a meeting with the project group for the project “Kriterier för belysning på statlig väg”, which is a group with common members from Swedish Association of Local Authorities and Regions (SALAR) and Swedish Transport Administration. The participants at the meeting found the following criteria interesting to apply. A public road on the countryside should be equipped with road lighting if: 1. the road runs through an urban area; 2. there is a local plan where there is mixed traffic on a national arterial road; 3. there are establishments and services that generate vulnerable road users close by the road, e.g. schools, churches, community centers, gymnasiums, health care centers, museums, train stations, ferry quays or similar; 4. there are passages for pedestrians and cyclists or speed reducing measures along the road; 5. there are commuter stops, including train and boat; and 6. prevailing requirements on AADT in VGU are fulfilled. (Author/publisher)
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