4 minute read
Smart Park
By Randy Reid
The city of Raleigh, North Carolina, recently launched its first Wi-Fi enabled park, Peach Road Park, a trial project that will run through March of 2025. Free Wi-Fi is available to all park visitors. As part of the project, the city incorporated Genlyte Solutions’ outdoor fixtures connected with Interact software.
LM&M caught up with Scott McCarley, Product Manager, Connected Outdoor Solutions, Genlyte Solutions, Signify, to discuss the project.
Randy Reid: Can you tell me the fixture types, models, etc. on the job?
Scott McCarley: The project uses Genlyte Solutions’ Gardco PureForm luminaires, which include Signify’s BrightSites technology, making them broadband luminaires. The project also features Genlyte Solutions’ Lumec RoadFocus luminaires, equipped with Interact and outdoor multi-sensors.
Reid: Can you explain how the Interact software and outdoor multi-sensors deliver motion detection, ambient noise and temperature insights to the City?
McCarley: The Interact connected lighting system enables the City to remotely monitor the real-time health status and energy consumption of each light point from a single dashboard. Using the system, the City can also remotely manage and control the lights.
The data received in the software from the control node and outdoor multi-sensors embedded into the luminaires can help:
• Improve maintenance efficiency, immediately alerting the City to outages or performance issues
• Maximize energy efficiency with dimming schedules, for example
• Deliver other actionable insights and support decision-making based on real-time activities, environmental information and historical trends in the illuminated environment.
Reid: Does the motion detection cause the intensity of the lights to adjust?
McCarley: For motion detection, the City can automate its light points to react, meaning brighten when motion/ presence is detected and dim when not. This can help save energy and associated costs when the light is not needed and maintain citizen peace of mind by promoting safety and security.
Reid: What kind of ambient noise are you measuring, and what does Interact do with that information?
McCarley: Noise monitoring will detect the ambient noise level and changes over time, which could be driven by a crowd or event or cars or traffic. For instance, the City of Mount Vernon used the Interact connected lighting technology to detect noise level ordinance violations, such as those that might occur from leaf blowing, and to reinforce the city’s ordinance to help reduce the noise impact on citizens.
The Interact system ensures non-intrusive monitoring of noise behavior and alerts the City when noise thresholds are crossed. The City can use the dashboard to visualize trends as well, so they can identify areas to improve citizens’ quality of life.
Reid: If Interact detects the temperature is extreme, what does it do with that information?
McCarley: Similarly, the City can leverage the ambient temperature environmental data to measure and monitor local temperatures.
In general, cities do not have sufficient access to city-wide heat data to understand localized risks caused by extreme temperatures and to identify priority problem areas. Different areas of a city can experience different temperatures due to numerous factors; structures, such as buildings and roads, can absorb and re-emit the sun's heat more than natural landscapes such as forests and bodies of water.
The temperature information, collected by Interact, can be used to support city planning efforts to lessen the impact of extreme temperatures and communicate preventive health information to the public in the event of extreme heat or cold.
Speaking on behalf of the Wi-Fi initiative, Chris Peabody, Chief Strategy Officer for Networking for Future (NFF), added the following:
“This solution provides robust, secure and affordable Internet access in an area that is challenging to install fiber and provide digital services. The solution is also highly customizable and can be deployed at significantly lower cost and faster deployment times than traditional fiber solutions. It checks a lot of boxes across our public sector client goals to alleviate digital divide concerns, optimize energy use, increase sustainability efforts and improve services to citizens.”
