Development of a Road Illumination Measurement System

Several measures, such as reduced lighting, may be adopted to minimise energy consumption while providing an optimal and safe level of road lighting. One approach to evaluate the safety impact of reduced road lighting is by using Geographical Information System (GIS) to identify road sections with low level of illumination and high risk of road traffic accidents. The GIS approach required a cost-effective and efficient system to measure the level of lighting provision at close intervals along a road network. This paper presents the development and validation of a road illumination measurement system developed for this purpose. The system is based on TSL2561 illumination sensors, u-blox NEO-6M GPS module, Robotdyn Arduino Mega Pro Embed and Catalex microSD shield. The results showed that the measurements obtained from the developed system followed a similar trend as a commercial light meter, and that it could be used to identify road sections with relatively low levels of illumination for further safety analysis using GIS.