The earliest lamps were used by Greek and Roman civilizations, where light primarily served the purpose of security, both to protect the wanderer from tripping over something on the path as well as keeping the potential robbers at bay. At that time oil lamps were used predominantly as they provided a long-lasting and moderate flame. The Romans had a word 'laternarius', which was a term for a slave responsible for lighting up the oil lamps in front of their villas. This task continued to be kept for a special person as far as up to Middle Ages where the so-called 'link boys' escorted people from one place to another through the murky winding streets of medieval towns.
Before incandescent lamps, gas lighting was employed in cities. The earliest lamps required that a lamplighter tour the town at dusk, lighting each of the lamps, but later designs employed ignition devices that would automatically strike the flame when the gas supply was activated. The earliest of such street lamps were built in the Arab Empire, especially in Córdoba, Spain ( around 1000 CE/AD ). The first modern street lamps, which used kerosene, were introduced in Lviv in what was then the Austrian Empire in 1853.
The first electric street lighting employed arc lamps, initially the 'Electric candle', 'Jablotchkoff candle' or 'Yablochkov candle' developed by the Russian Pavel Yablochkov in 1875. This was a carbon arc lamp employing alternating current, which ensured that both electrodes were consumed at equal rates. Yablochkov candles were first used to light the Grands Magasins du Louvre, Paris where 80 were deployed—improvement which was one of the reasons why Paris earned its "City of Lights" nickname. Soon after, experimental arrays of arc lamps were used to light Holborn Viaduct and the Thames Embankment in London - the first electric street lighting in Britain. More than 4, 000 were in use by 1881, though by then an improved differential arc lamp had been developed by Friedrich von Hefner-Alteneck of Siemens & Halske. The United States was swift in adopting arc lighting, and by 1890 over 130, 000 were in operation in the US, commonly installed in exceptionally tall moonlight towers.
The first street in the UK to be lit by electric light was Mosley Street, in Newcastle-upon-Tyne. The street was lit by Joseph Swan's incandescent lamp on the 3rd February, 1879. The first in the United States, and second overall, was the Public Square road system in Cleveland, Ohio, on April 29, 1879. Wabash, Indiana holds the title of being the third electrically-lit city in the world, which took place on February 2, 1880. Four 3, 000 candlepower Brush arc lamps suspended over the courthouse rendered the town square "as light as midday. " Kimberley, South Africa, was the first city in the Southern Hemisphere and in Africa to have electric street lights - first lit on 1 September 1882. In Latin America, San Jose, Costa Rica was the first city, the system was launched on August 9, 1884, with 25 lamps powered by an hydroelectric plant.
Timişoara, in present-day Romania, was the first city in mainland Europe to have electric public lighting on the 12 of November 1884.731 lamps were used. In 1888 Tamworth, New South Wales, Australia became the first location in Australia to have electric street lighting, giving the city the title of "First City of Light".
Arc lights had two major disadvantages. First, they emit an intense and harsh light which, although useful at industrial sites like dockyards, was discomforting in ordinary city streets. Second, they are maintenance-intensive, as carbon electrodes burn away swiftly. With the development of cheap, reliable and bright incandescent light bulbs at the end of the 19th century, arc lights passed out of use for street lighting, but remained in industrial use longer.
Incandescent lamps were primarily used for street lighting until the advent of high-intensity discharge lamps. They were often operated at high-voltage series circuits. Series circuits were popular since the higher voltage in these circuits produced more light per watt consumed. Furthermore, before the invention of photoelectric controls, a single switch or clock could control all the lights in an entire district.
To avoid having the entire system go dark if a single lamp burned out, each street lamp was equipped with a device that ensured that the circuit would remain intact. Early series street lights were equipped with isolation transformers. That would allow current to pass across the transformer whether the bulb worked or not. Later the film cutout was invented. The film cutout was a small disk of insulating film that separated two contacts connected to the two wires leading to the lamp. If the lamp failed (an open circuit), the current through the string became zero, causing the voltage of the circuit (thousands of volts) to be imposed across the insulating film, penetrating it (see Ohm's law). In this way, the failed lamp was bypassed and power restored to the rest of the district. The street light circuit contained an automatic voltage regulator, preventing the current from increasing as lamps burned out, preserving the life of the remaining lamps. When the failed lamp was replaced, a new piece of film was installed, once again separating the contacts in the cutout. This system was recognizable by the large porcelain insulator separating the lamp and reflector from the mounting arm. This was necessary because the two contacts in the lamp's base may have operated at several thousand volts above ground/earth.
Today, street lighting commonly uses high-intensity discharge lamps, often HPS high pressure sodium lamps. Such lamps provide the greatest amount of photopic illumination for the least consumption of electricity. However when scotopic/photopic light calculations are used, it can been seen how inappropriate HPS lamps are for night lighting. White light sources have been shown to double driver peripheral vision and increase driver brake reaction time at least 25%. When S/P light calculations are used, HPS lamp performance needs to be reduced by a minimum value of 75%. This is now a standard design criteria for Australian roads.
A study comparing metal halide and high-pressure sodium lamps showed that at equal photopic light levels, a street scene illuminated at night by a metal halide lighting system was reliably seen as brighter and safer than the same scene illuminated by a high pressure sodium system.
New street lighting technologies, such as LED or inductionlights, emit a white light that provides high levels of scotopic lumens allowing street lights with lower wattages and lower photopic lumens to replace existing street lights. However, there have been no formal specifications written around Photopic/Scotopic adjustments for different types of light sources, causing many municipalities and street departments to hold back on implementation of these new technologies until the standards are updated.
Photovoltaic-powered LED luminaires are gaining wider acceptance. Preliminary field tests show that some LED luminaires are energy-efficient and perform well in testing environments.
In 2007, the Civil Twilight Collective created a variant of the conventional LED streetlight, namely the Lunar-resonant streetlight. These lights increase or decrease the intensity of the streetlight according to the lunar light. This streetlight design thus reduces energy consumption as well as light pollution.
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