BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 27
By Sadraddin Aghjayev – Trend:
Azerbaijan's government has confirmed the 'Signify' project to create ‘smart’ lighting throughout the city of Baku, Eric Benedetti, Vice President and Director General of Signify in Russia and the CIS, told Trend.
“Earlier, it was decided to implement a pilot project for 86 light points, now it has been decided to install such a light throughout the capital of Azerbaijan. The company is now actively working on the modernization of urban lighting,” Benedetti said.
"We are pleased to begin the implementation of a project to create an integrated lighting system in Azerbaijan’s Baku. All lamps will be united by a single Philips CityTouch control system. This will increase the energy efficiency rate up to 80 percent. We hope that this project will be appreciated and smart lighting will appear in other cities of Azerbaijan as well," Benedetti said.
He noted that lighting plays an important role in the development of a "smart city", since it can serve as its infrastructure.
“The light points are combined into one system and are equipped with special sensors that allow municipalities to collect and analyze data on the state of the urban environment and, as a result, make decisions to improve it. For example, the administration can use this technology to study road activity, including traffic jams, and integrate lights into the traffic light system,” the VP said.
In addition, lighting control becomes automated – one can flexibly adjust the time of switching on and off of various groups of lamps, monitor their condition and loads to prevent breakdowns, which helps the city authorities to significantly save on maintenance.
“Lighting is easy to adjust to the time of day or season, for example, to reduce the brightness at night when there is no one on the streets, or to dim the lights in places where people rarely walk. This will reduce energy consumption by up to 80 percent, which means that the costs for it will also be reduced. The introduction of a "smart" lighting system on the Interact City Platform ensures road safety, reducing the probability of traffic accidents by 30 percent and crimes by 21 percent,” he said.
“The system also optimizes the flow of cars, can analyze the state of the environment, collect any other data and transmit it to the appropriate city services. For example, in Los Angeles Signify has equipped streetlights with sound sensors – they can reduce the response time to an emergency situation, register the sound of a car collision and promptly report a traffic accident,” Benedetti said.
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