This book will help electric sign companies compete for extra income by servicing parking lot and security lighting for existing customers and new ones. The book includes merchandising planning, servicing ...
The sign industry should study the traffic-light upgrade and change-out processes.
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First commercialized in the 1970s, LED lamps found initial use as indicator lights in consumer products. As the technology improved, light output increased, and other colors became available. The next notable deployment occurred in the mid-1990s, when exit and traffic signmakers adopted LED lamps. Such easily installed applications proved effective.
Today, LED marketers have projected giant growth claims –one forecasts an aggregate revenue growth of approximately $11 billion by 2012 for high-brightness LEDs in signage, display and illumination industries. Nonetheless, the current technologies will remain effective for some time.
This isn’t true for LED-based traffic signs, because, in such applications, color binning and infrastructure shortcomings are acceptable. Further, LEDs’ benefits over incandescent are obvious: They are brighter, last several years and use less energy.
Consequently, most U.S. cities are upgrading their incandescent traffic lights with LED units (many have already converted). The upgrade advantages are:
• Brighter: The LED arrays wrap the entire traffic light surface with equal brightness, thus increasing the overall (comparable) brightness.
• Longer lasting: LED units can last several years. Fewer truck trips save big dollars.
• Energy efficient: LED lamps cut electrical wattage by at least 70%.
Many new traffic signals contain LED arrays. In these, the individual LEDs are small, about the size of thumbtack head, which allows hundreds to be arrayed as a one-light source, when seen from a distance. If a traffic light uses 100W bulbs, it will consume 2.4 kilowatt-hours of energy per 24-hour day. Assuming an average cost of 10 cents per kilowatt-hour, one traffic signal will cost 24 cents a day to operate, or about $88 per year.
Intersections typically have 12 traffic signals, which means at least $1,000 per year. A big city has thousands of intersections; hence, it costs millions of dollars to power traffic signals. (Commercial-energy costs vary across states – for example, New York, Massachusetts and California pay twice the rate of Minnesota – see www.energy.gov.)
Conservatively speaking, today’s LED bulbs could drop energy con-sumption by a factor of five. In the future, as technology increases the LED efficacy, they may consume only 5W. Even today, large cities can save more than a million dollars annually, by replacing traffic bulbs with LED units.
LED bulbs are also suitable for standalone, solar-panel feeds, which avoid remote-area, electrical-line routing and save money.
Benefits
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