FUTURE THINKING

A new UK/EU project that is working to aid the development of sustainable, socially beneficial ‘smart’ public lighting was the focus of a recent workshop in Portsmouth, including input from the ILP. Here is an overview of what was discussed and some of the day’s key learning points

By Dr Hassana Abdullahi, Professor Djamila Ouelhadj, Ramazan Esmeli and Professor Marleen Janssen Groesbeek

The Interreg 2 Seas Smart Lights Concept (SLIC) is a European Unionfunded project that is aiming to develop and test innovative techniques, methods, tools and concepts for energy savings, energy efficiency and renewable energy use in public lighting.

These include a decision-support tool, funding models, business cases, public engagement, and a cross-border knowledge platform.

A workshop on the project was recently held at Portsmouth University to aid decision-makers – policymakers, public lighting authorities and technical experts – in the implementation of smart public lighting technologies.

In particular, we were keen to discuss the selection of optimal actions to take in order to improve the performance of a given public lighting system in different environments. These included addressing a set of multiple conflicting criteria and constraints, such as operating costs, investment costs, CO2 emissions and health and safety.

The SLIC UK workshop was organised by the university of Portsmouth and held on 12 March (so just ahead of the coronavirus lockdown) at the Doubletree by Hilton Hotel in Southampton.

It attracted 29 delegates from industry and academia within the UK and Europe. The aim of the workshop was to bring together academics, stakeholders, technology decision-makers, and policymakers from across Europe to discuss the potential and relevance of the use of decision-support tools for smart and sustainable public lighting.

The agenda for the day included keynote speakers with expertise in smart and sustainable lighting solutions, a panel and roundtable discussions. The aim of the roundtable discussions was to exchange knowledge between the different participants and to gather insights and inputs for the decision-support tool and to discuss the economic, environmental, and social key performance indicators for the decision-support tool.

Our keynote speakers were:

• Professor Djamila Ouelhadj, professor of operational research and analytics at the School of Mathematics and Physics at Portsmouth University and the academic lead. Professor Ouelhadj also chaired the workshop and welcomed the delegates. • Dr Karen Janssen, SLIC project lead/ manager and a senior researcher at the Centre of Expertise for Sustainable Business at Avans University of Applied Science, the Netherlands.

• David Hollingsworth, senior exterior lighting engineer at Ramboll UK in

Southampton. • Peter Harrison, the ILP’s Technical

Director and prior to that director of Harrison Lighting and independent consultant in the exterior lighting industry. • Richard Webster, street lighting manager for Suffolk Highways.

• Professor Marleen Janssen Groes

beek, professor of sustainable finance and accounting at Avans University of

Applied Sciences. • Dr Hassana Abdullahi, research fellow in applied operational research for the SLIC project at the School of Mathematics and Physics at Portsmouth University.

KEYNOTE PRESENTATIONS

Dr Janssen gave an introduction to the SLIC project, its aims and the partners involved, which we will come to shortly.

She explained that the project involves nine partners:

• The University of Portsmouth, UK • Avans University of Applied Sciences, the Netherlands • The municipality of Mechelen,

Belgium • The city of Bruges, Belgium • The municipality of Amiens, France • The municipality of Etten-Leur, the

Netherlands • The municipality of Veurne, Belgium • Suffolk County Council, UK

Dr Janssen also outlined how the research themes of the project focus on four primary areas: funding models and business cases, proven lighting technologies, stakeholder involvement, safety and crime evaluation.

David Hollingsworth explained the concept of a ‘smart city’ to the workshop attendees and what smart lighting can offer in the context of smart cities.

He highlighted some benefits of smart lighting when integrated with sensors. These include (but are not limited to): air quality monitoring, noise (car crash or social disturbances) monitoring, and traffic/pedestrian counting.

David also explained how smart cities can benefit from smart lighting using car charging points on lighting columns as well as the potential for using solar power in energy generation.

David advised that, before adding an equipment to an existing column, lighting guidance needs to be consulted. He cited, for example, that this needs to include the ILP’s PLG06 (2014) Guidance on Installation and Maintenance of Seasonal Decorations and Lighting Column Attachments [1].

Peter Harrison in his talk emphasised the benefits and savings obtainable from the implementation of ‘dimming and trimming’ in terms of street lighting.

However, he emphasised that, although lighting standards can be used to apply variable lighting, this requires an engineering approach.

One important note to take away from Peter’s talk was that current lighting standards do not directly take into account the social effects of lighting.

As highlighted above, Suffolk County Council is a pilot partner on the SLIC project. Richard Webster in his presentation therefore provided an update on some of the council’s street lighting innovations.

The council’s aim has been to investigate the potential of additional energy savings that can be achieved by correlating traffic in residential roads to changes on main roads.

Accordingly, the pilot has installed 25 radars to cover 500 lights and one road surface temperature sensor. A further element of the pilot has been the county-wide transition to LED, which in turn has realised energy savings, smart lighting adaptations and the widespread use of data analytics. The project had successfully obtained a

100% Salix funding, Richard explained.

Professor Janssen Groesbeek is responsible for the development of sustainable finance and business models for the SLIC project. In her presentation she stressed the need to consider smart public lighting as a concept that is not only limited to ‘changing a light bulb’.

Rather, smart public lighting needed to be seen as an all-in-one system that considers the safety and reliability of any chosen technology, money-saving, the involvement of stakeholders, safety and well-being of citizens, and impact of the technology on biodiversity, she argued.

Dr Abdullahi, along with researcher Ramazan Esmeli, presented an overview of the SLIC decision-support tool that has been developed by the University of Portsmouth.

The tool, they explained, had been developed following a series of steps, including the design of the conceptual framework, the design of the user interface, definition of inputs and outputs, and the development of a multi-criteria decision-making model.

The tool is designed to take into account policy and technology decision-makers and the impact and evaluation of different locations, of economic and environmental c o n s i d e r a t i o n s , a n d o f s o c i a l sustainability.

It has been validated by the pilot partners. Feedback from the validation was implemented and a live demonstration of the improved tool was presented. One of the main aims of the workshop therefore was to get feedback from the stakeholders on the design and outputs of the decision-support tool.

WORKSHOP DISCUSSION KEY LEARNINGS

Following the keynote presentations, panel and roundtable discussions were led by Professor Ouelhadj to gather feedback on the design of the decision-support tool.

These concluded that having a tool that supports both a technical and a non-technical user is useful. A consensus was reached that the proposed social indicators of the tool should be implemented using information that can be gathered from the literature and guidelines available in the UK standard. This is because there is a gap within the EU on these standards, and the EU partners could learn from the UK standards.

During the roundtable session, participants were divided into three main groups to discuss the economic, environmental, and social impacts around the use and implementation of public lighting. The three tables were occupied by the participants of the workshop according to their expertise and topic of interest.

These discussions concluded the following:

• Economic impact. An economic model that measures the key performance indicators of operating costs, capital/investment costs, cost savings, and energy savings was agreed to be acceptable to be implemented in the tool. • Environmental impact. Environmental indicators that were agreed include biodiversity, which can be measured using the rating scale and glare index. However, to include the cost of biodiversity in the decision-support tool, it was highlighted that some monetary value needed to be given to the impact of biodiversity. The monetary value of biodiversity could be based on the idea that, since not all animals are equal in terms of how they are impacted by artificial lighting, the cost value of biodiversity will therefore diff e r b a s e d o n t h e s p e c i e s . Suggestions were also made that it could be valuable to research the possibility of integrating the decision-support tool with a central database or a Geographic Information System (GIS) so as to use real-time data and location visualisation. Lifetime CO2 related to production, operation, maintenance and end-oflife (maybe disposal or recycling) were also considered to be interesting environmental indicators for the decision-support tool. • Social impact. Some of the social indicators agreed were health and safety, user comfort, the impact of road traffic accidents and its relationship to illuminance levels, motorists and pedestrians, crime risk, and the acceptability of and pride in social inclusion. On this latter point, there was discussion around how social inclusion can be promoted by light colour, and how light design can promote a sense of pride.

One conclusion of the discussion was that these social indicators can be measured using information both available in the literature and within the UK lighting standards, as there is again a gap in the EU on these standards.

The EU partners, for example, could learn from UK guidance such as the ILP’s GN01 Guidance Notes for the Reduction of Obtrusive Light adapted from the CIE 150 (2017) Guide on the limitation of the effects of obtrusive light from outdoor lighting installations [2]. The social indicators implemented in the tool following the UK guidelines could also form a basis for the EU partners to develop their own, the roundtable discussion concluded.

SUMMARY

The workshop was very successful in providing insights on the potential of smart lighting and smart lighting expertise, along with looking at developments in this context within the lighting industry in the UK and EU.

It presented an excellent opportunity for the academics and stakeholders to present, discuss, network and hear about the exciting innovations taking place in smart and sustainable public lighting and the potential of decision-support tools in aiding decision-making, the selection of public lighting technologies, and the evaluation of their economic, environmental and social impacts.

The discussion and feedback sessions played a significant role in developing a consensus with the partners and the stakeholders around what next steps need to be taken in the improvement of the design of the decision-support tool.

Finally, an important topic discussed during the workshop was the novel multi-criteria method for choosing public lighting technologies, in other words the need to be considering the three sustainability dimensions of economic, environmental and social.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

We acknowledge and thank the Interreg 2 Seas Mers Zeeën European Regional Development Fund for funding the Smart Lights Concept (SLIC) project. You can find out more about the project online at www.smartlightconcepts.eu

Professor Djamila Ouelhadj is professor of operational research and analytics, Dr Hassana Abdullahi is research fellow in applied operational research, and Ramazan Esmeli is a researcher at Portsmouth University’s Centre for Logistics and Operational Research. Professor Marleen Janssen Groesbeek is professor of sustainable finance and accounting at Avans University of Applied Sciences, Breda, the Netherlands.

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STAND CLEAR

A consortium bringing together the lighting and rail industries, academia and the government has been studying how smart lighting technology can be used to improve train station capacity and passenger flow

By Alan Grant and Richard Harris

This article looks at the results of a research project that examined how smart technology, and in particular smart lighting, can be used to help our railway network improve station capacity and passenger flow.

The project was run by a consortium led by DW Windsor, including smart city specialist sister company Urban Control along with the Department for Transport, the government agency InnovateUK, transport operator FirstGroup, the University of Nottingham, and RSSB, the Rail Safety and Standards Board.

THE CHALLENGE

Performance and safety (including the movement of people) at train stations is, naturally, a key concern in rail transport today, especially with the increasing numbers of passengers and often out-dated and cluttered station spaces. The project, commissioned as part of the government’s 2012 Rail Technical Strategy, believes that improving capacity and enhancing customer experience will increase passenger flow in stations [1]. The key project requirements were to:

• Create intelligent stations that respond to the needs of customers, using dynamic lighting • Use light to get people on and off trains and through the station more quickly and safely • Ensure lighting does not cause glare or visual discomfort for drivers and passengers • Find an alternative to existing wayfinding solutions, including decluttering stations of outdated signage/zoning systems • Modernise the rail industry through the use of current trends, in other words experience lighting that is flexible, controllable, responsive and intuitive • Bring in systems that are instinctive and engaging

THE SOLUTION

The first question that needed to be addressed was: ‘why lighting?’. After all,

traditionally printed signage has been used to help commuter flow. However, signs need to be cognitively processed by passengers, which can take a few more precious seconds. Light on the other hand is much more intuitive and quicker to process.

Lighting can influence behaviour, speed and the movement of people. At the same time, many stations are already upgrading their functional lighting to LED to save energy, so there was an opportunity identified – for LED lighting, with intelligent control functionality added, to deliver added potential.

PROOF OF CONCEPT

The University of Nottingham’s human factors team and Geospatial Institute led a research study to identify the typical movement-related issues an average station faces.

They then conducted an extensive review of lighting research literature, focusing on the reported effects of lighting upon behaviour/mood.

This led to the identification of clear opportunities for using light to influence movement behaviours.

From this, FirstGroup agreed for a proof of concept trial site, at Chippenham Station in Wiltshire.

The project – ‘Accelerating Innovation in Rail 4’ (AIR4) – led by DW Windsor, working with Urban Control, was to develop new wireless, connected lights and sensors for the station controlled through Cloud-based software. The project was part-funded by the Department for Transport and delivered through a competition run by InnovateUK.

THE PROJECT (PLATFORMS)

The aim of the project was to reduce dwell time and improve customer experience and safety. Alongside this, there was a goal to provide intuitive information to customers on where to stand to board the train and improve the flow of passengers off the trains and on the platform.

We used custom designed gobo-projected lighting on the platform to indicate to passengers where to stand to be adjacent to the carriage doors when the trains stopped at the station but not blocking the exit of those disembarking.

This also allowed a freer flow of passengers disembarking. The trial was evaluated by the university with a series of research questions. These were: • Do the lights function as intended? • Do passengers respond to the lighting/move to stand for the train? • Do passengers distribute evenly along the platform? • Do passengers appreciate the lighting intervention? More orderly boarding?

The research was conducted through a combination of observations (both direct and indirect), interviews with customers and staff and by capturing and analysing Wi Fi data.

THE RESULT

Initial results from the study have proved to be extremely encouraging and have provided further insights into customer behaviour.

People did seem to notice the lights (in other words, they looked up, back, and along) and a small proportion of people used the lights to stand in the ‘correct’ place. There were several types of interactions with the lights, which as part of the research were categorised into five main ‘response types’.

1. The participant was positioned in an area from which it would be difficult to see the light and/or they were turned away from the lights. 2. The participant was positioned in an area in which it would be easy to see the lights, but for whatever reason (for example on their phone) they did not notice the lights. 3. The participant noticed the lights and looked up into the canopy, on to the projection or along the platform, but took no further action in response to the light . 4. The participant noticed the light and interacted with it by looking/moving either a body part (for example a foot) or their whole body into and/or out of the projection. 5. The participant was positioned away from the lighting but, once it activated, appeared to move closer/into the light .

THE PROJECT (HANDRAIL AND STAIRWAY)

Here the aim was to encourage efficient bi-directional passenger flows, improve space allocation and regulate walking speeds.

The approach for this element of the project was to install a dynamic lighting version of the DW Windsor Garda handrail system to indicate direction and pace of travel on the stairway; in other words, ‘up’ on the left of the stairs and ‘down’ on the right.

Furthermore, coloured LED lights were placed at the top of the staircase to align people descending; green on the left to encourage people to keep to the left side of the stairs when descending and red on the right to discourage use of this side. The trial was again evaluated, in this case using the following four research questions:

• Do the lights function as intended? • Do passengers move up and down the appropriate side of the stairway? • Do the stairways clear quicker during busy times? • Are there any improvements in passenger experience?

As with the platforms, customers and staff were interviewed, and observers took photos to document results.

THE RESULT

The survey responses indicated that passengers understood the purpose of the lighting. It was found the lights were (perhaps unsurprisingly) more visible during darkness or partial light – ideal for high commuter times – but the movement effect was strongest around dawn.

Several incidents were noted where passengers predominantly used the stairway as directed. Some people were observed moving from one side to the other after observing the lights.

In conclusion, the lights were noticeable and functioned as intended. People responded to the lights and some understood the intended reaction. Others thought they were to inspire use of the handrail, which nevertheless encouraged safer usage and movement.

The feedback from staff was that they found the lights useful as a device to back up their suggestions on how to use the stairway.

The final words we leave to two of our consortium partners. First, Nick Coad, a consultant with rail specialist consultancy Insetting, who is working with Urban Control, says: ‘There was so much interest in our demonstration that is shows that the market is ready for a change.

‘The beauty of these solutions is that they are not limited to rail alone; they can be applied anywhere crowds need to be influenced. The application possibilities are extensive from football stadiums to music concerts.’

And Stuart Parker, property director with FirstGroup, adds: ‘This [research] has been a very exciting project to be involved in. Innovative initiatives of this nature can open the door to a world of possibilities and are setting the standard for future customer experiences.’

Alan Grant is design and development director and Richard Harris is sales director at DW Windsor