Design Guide For Roadway Lighting Maintenance

This guide replaces the 1984 publication entitled An Informational Guide for Roadway Lighting. It has been revised and brought up to date to reflect current practices in roadway lighting. The guide provides a general overview of lighting systems from the point of view of the transportation departments and recommends minimum levels of quality. The guide incorporates the illuminance and luminance design methods, but does not include the small target visibility (STV) method.

Providing light beyond the limits of the roadway travel lanes benefits drivers' visual performance, spectral content of light-emitting diode (LED) sources should be a design consideration, and there are not currently any health impacts from properly designed roadway lighting are among the findings of this survey report. The TRB National Cooperative Highway Research Program's NCHRP Research Report 940: Solid-State Roadway Lighting Design Guide: Volume 2: Research Overview determines the current guidance for the use of Solid State Lighting (SSL); identifies the research that still needs to be accomplished to assist in its proper implementation; and develops a comprehensive, easy to use, set of guidelines using currently available information and new research being proposed as part of this project. Also see this guide's accompanying report, NCHRP Research Report 940: Solid-State Roadway Lighting Design Guide: Volume 1: Guidance.

This guide is intended to promote uniformity in lighting across Canada by providing guidance in the planning and design of roadway lighting and related outdoor lighting systems. It is divided into two major sections - Fundamentals and Design. Fundamentals (volume 1) contains information on lighting theory, obtrusive light, the planning and design process, standards and codes, calculations and the use of computer software in roadway design and maintenance. Design (volume 2) applies the principles and information presented in the first section to specific facilities that may require lighting, such as roadways, interchanges, intersections, roundabouts and tunnels. Also included are off-road facilities such as pedestrian and bicycle pathways, weigh scales, rest areas and road signs. This section also provides guidelines for streetscapes, temporary roadway lighting and work zone lighting for road construction areas.