Evaluation of a Traffic-Aware Smart Highway Lighting System

Highway lighting consumes considerable amounts of energy, yet smart lighting techniques provide significant potential for reducing this consumption. This paper introduces a preliminary algorithm, simulation studies and a small-scale hardware prototype for a smart highway lighting management system based on road occupancy. Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) detects the presence of vehicles along the road, and controls lighting accordingly. The system is evaluated through two different simulation studies: using a realistic model for vehicles traffic based on cellular automata (Nagel-Shreckenberg model), and using state-of-the-art Simulation of Urban Mobility (SUMO) traffic simulator. Simulations provide estimation for expected energy saving rates at different cases and scenarios. According to simulation results, the proposed system can save up to 57.4% of power consumption compared to conventional lighting systems.