The road lighting is an essential facility in order to ensure the safety of roadway users and well visibility. Typically, the lighting system that luminaires are mounted at the high pole is used a lot. Recently, the LED road lighting luminaires which ...
The road lighting is an essential facility in order to ensure the safety of roadway users and well visibility. Typically, the lighting system that luminaires are mounted at the high pole is used a lot. Recently, the LED road lighting luminaires which are being developed adhere to the pole type lighting system. Accordingly, many LED should be used, and increase of size, heavy weight and others are discussed as problems. From a new perspective, low mounting height road lighting system has been proposed in order to solve the some problems of traditional lighting system.
In this research, the driver's visibility under the proposed low mounting height road lighting system was evaluated. Based on the evaluation results, the maximum allowable total illuminance(Eemax) on a plane at the observer's eye was proposed as the performance criteria required to the low mounting height road lighting system. To evaluate the driver's visibility regarding to the different luminance distribution between two lighting system, the effects of disability glare by installation, and the effects of flicker, the experiments were performed over three times.
(1) In the first experiment focusing on the difference of luminance distribution, the visibility of the driver was evaluated. Several test conditions with different average luminance, overall uniformity, and luminance contrast were provided, then physiological response was evaluated. Changes in reaction time at each of the facts were analyzed. And the reaction time which was obtained from the each lighting systems was compared with each other. It was confirmed that the visibility under the conditions of low mounting height road lighting was better than the other conditions. The difference of luminance distribution for two lighting systems was verified through the calculation of visibility level. The physiological reaction time under the conditions of low mounting height road lighting was fast.
(2) In the second experiment, the disability glare effects due to the veiling luminance were evaluated. Based on the measurement method of TI, illuminance of the observer's eye was given to the subjects, and the changes of luminance threshold which be able to recognize the visual target was evaluated. The disability glare of low mounting height road lighting system was larger than traditional road lighting system. So, allowable total illuminance(Ee) on a plane at the observer's eye was limited to the degree that allowable the effects of disability glare. If the limited illuminance is satisfied, the glare effects from two road lighting systems is almost same. The proposed illuminance is 4 lx, and this value was more strictly limited after third test was performed.
(3) In the third experiment, the flicker effects due to the narrow installation spacing of low mounting height road lighting system. The amount of light entering the vehicle was assumed to the illuminance that is provided to the driver. As the illuminance was more increased, the physiological reaction time came to be slow, and unpleasant feeling was increased. As the flicker frequency came to be short, the reaction time was slower and unpleasant feeling was increased. The trend with age was similar, but the reaction time of sixties was slower than that of twenties and the variation width of unpleasant feeling was narrow in case of sixties. When the illuminance on the surface of the pupil is low, the reaction time was faster than the reaction time obtained from the pole type road lighting system of the first test. There was a point that the unpleasant feeling was increased and the reaction time became to be slow. The given illuminance(Ee) in this time was proposed as the maximum allowable total illuminance(E_(emax)) on a plane at the observer's eye so that decrease of visibility and unpleasant feeling can be allowed from the low mounting height road lighting system.
When the installation spacing is 1 m, the maximum limited illuminance is 1.8 lx, and it is 3 lx at the spacing of 0.5 m. These values are not applied for each of the luminaires, but they are the illuminance on a plane at the observer's eye that will be provided from all luminaires to drivers. If the proposed illuminance is given, an insurance of the driver's visibility will be ensured.
Experiments are performed in the indoor laboratory. Variations of visibility due to the factors affecting driver's visibility were analyzed. Based on the results obtained from the traditional road lighting conditions that give the well road lighting environment and the visibility, relative evaluation was performed. To provide the visibility similar with traditional road lighting, the limited illuminance of low mounting height road lighting system was proposed.