Whether your facility, building, or lot is for public access or just employees; security and safety is paramount to all of those who have access to the parking lot. For this sole reason, along with just being and looking professional to the public eye, a proper lighting system is a must for your lot.
By having an under lit and overall low quality lot full of bad area lights, you increase the chance for crime in your lot to both people and property. This post is all about how we can greatly deter and thus reduce or eliminate any type of mischievous activity from entering the property’s parking lot. On top of the added benefit that quality parking lot LED fixtures will bring in regards to safety, we will also discuss cost saving benefits that will make the reasoning behind the upgrade even more feasible. This will allow for greater approval if you are simply just a property or facility manager. If you are a building owner on the other hand, it will just that much more improve the likelihood of you looking into this highly viable option and possibly even making the switch as soon as possible. Because not only with LED technology in your lot improve safety, but it will also improve your bottom line believe it or not!
What is “Parking Lot Lighting?”
Before we can explain why LED is superior to other outdated lighting technologies commonly used in the parking lot (like high pressure sodium and metal halide), we need to define what parking lot lighting consists of.
Typically we refer to it as “area lighting” for the more “official” term. On top of that, these area lights typically sit in a shoebox fixture, which is what you typically find in parking lots.
Now we list multiple ways that area lighting LEDs will improve safety, reduce costs, and create a better appeal to your business from a customer point of view.
No more underlit areas. By switching to LED from these other outdated technologies, you opt-out for the high lumen depreciation that metal halide and similar technologies are susceptible to. With lumen depreciation, you lights slowly becoming dimmer and dimmer overtime by the loss of lumen output they supply. All lighting technologies do this, but with LED it is at a much slower rate and overall much less than other lighting products. And with a proper lighting system design, this can be avoided entirely with LED.
No flickering or buzzing. Not only are flickering and buzzing lights annoying in any situation, in a security aspect they take away security efforts. How so? Well, flickering lights take away from the ability to detect movement, which allows for harder to notice unwanted presence and easy to escape and evade security persons. By having steady light, you take away from this vulnerability that flickering lights bring. Since LED technology is any application will never face this issue (even nearing the end of its life), you take away this issue entirely.
Higher Color Rendering Index ratings. The Color Rendering Index (or CRI) is a scale of 0 to 100 that defines the ability to output at different color renderings. With LED being able to be higher up on the scale, this proves for LED fixtures to output better and higher quality light.
More lumens per watt = energy saving benefits. When it comes to efficiency, the more lumens per watt a given luminaire outputs is how you define whether that fixture is efficient or not. So a metal halide that outputs at 50 lumens per watt is highly inefficient to an LED that outputs at 150 lumens / watt. Remember this: never buy your shoebox parking lot lights off of watts, but rather lumens per watt. And always go with the highest lumen per watt fixture that you can find, it will pay itself off the fastest!
Note: Don’t know what a “lumen” is? Look at this discussion for a better idea and understanding of the lighting term.
Lowered maintenance costs through longer lifespan. The fact that LED has a lifespan of 2-3 times longer than other luminaire technologies allows for reduced maintenance costs associated with changing out deadlights. And since parking lot fixtures are high, the costs can seriously start to add up after changing out all of those light boxes. By switching over to LED parking lot lights you allow for a reduction in maintenance costs by 2-3 times through a longer lifespan..
Conclusion and Final Words
Not convinced that LED is a proper option for your parking lot and area lighting needs? Well, you might need to go re-read, visit the links to other resources that we’ve included in this article, and do more research because all of that will truly get your eyes open to the issue of parking lot security efforts and protect your employees and highly valued customers. Don’t put your customers or employees at risk any more and properly illuminate your lot!, you’ll even save money by doing it!
source http://my-led-lighting-guide.tumblr.com/post/151955221008
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