Abstract

Assessing the Health of your Street Light Infrastructure
Track: Public Works
Authors: Jonathon Merrick

The City of Battle Creek, Michigan contracts with a regional energy provider to maintain our street light infrastructure. After receiving complaints from citizens about street lights not functioning, the City's GIS department was deployed to assess the problem. By utilizing our survey grade GPS mounted to a hybrid vehicle, ArcPad, and ArcGIS Desktop software, we drove every mile of road in the City at night and collected a position for each streetlight that was dysfunctional. After collection, we discovered that the street light infrastructure was not being maintained properly. GIS was a perfect fit for this task as the streetlight health assessment needed to be safe, fast, accurate, and not a disturbance to our citizens. This presentation focuses on the methods and technologies the City used to assess the health of our streetlight infrastructure and how we are working with our regional energy provider to ensure our streetlights remain functional.