Learn how a street light network works.
A 101-step Learning Track for city engineers, utilities, contractors, and maintenance crews in Europe, the Middle East, South Asia, and the USA. Select your region at the top: standards, voltages, and costs change to match.
The playbook is written by the team behind OpenSLMS, street light maintenance software.
- Start the Learning Track: 101 steps in 14 modules, from the cabinet to the contract.
- Why connect your lights?: What a controller gives you, and when you do not need one.
- Which controller do you need?: Six questions, one starting recommendation.
The parts of a street light network. Select one to read about it.
Modules
- 1. The network: What is on the street, how power reaches each lamp, and the lighting levels each road needs.
- 2. Luminaires: What is inside an LED street light, how to read a datasheet, how long it lasts, and what it must comply with.
- 3. Controllers: Why to connect street lights, and the sockets, dimming interfaces, and networks that make it work.
- 4. Energy and carbon: Know what a circuit should use, find where it uses more, save energy at quiet hours, and report the carbon.
- 5. Solar street lights: Off-grid and hybrid solar street lights: where they make sense, how to size them, and how to keep them working.
- 6. Faults: Find the cause before the crew leaves the depot, so the right people take the right parts.
- 7. Failure library: The failures crews see most often, each with the symptom, the cause, how to check, how to fix, and how to prevent it.
- 8. Maintenance: Turn every problem into a job, close it on time, prevent the next one, and recover fast after a storm.
- 9. Smart poles: What else a street light pole can carry, and what to check before you add it.
- 10. SOPs: Standard operating procedures for common street lighting jobs. Use them as templates and add your local rules and the maker’s instructions.
- 11. Standards by region: The standards and rules for each region, then the international references that apply everywhere.
- 12. Contracts and tenders: Buy the right system, and write contracts that pay for lights that work.
- 13. Tender clause library: Specification clauses you can copy into a tender, with the reason for each one and how to check an offer against it.
- 14. Glossary: The words you will see in tenders, datasheets, and this site, from all four regions.
Sections
- Learning Track: Every guide in one flow, from the cabinet to the contract.
- Comparison: NEMA or Zhaga, cellular or LoRaWAN or mesh, and a 10-year network cost model.
- Tools: Controller decision tool and calculators for dimming, burn hours, voltage drop, solar, cost, and spares.
- Benchmark: Metrics, method, and the industry survey.
- Download: Templates for SOPs, standards, tenders, surveys, patrols, and plans.