The light is about to go on here - this is how "wandering" street lighting works
Aargauer Zeitung (Simone Morger), 12/06/2018
Darkness falls early at present and especially overland the roads are quite gloomy for cyclists. On the renovated connecting road between Zetzwil and Gontenschwil, motion-controlled lighting accompanies cyclists, car drivers and pedestrians.
There are only a few hundred meters between Zetzwil and Gontenschwil. The two villages are connected by Gontenschwilerstrasse, for many it is a school route and an important connecting road. Since this fall, this road has been freshly renovated. There is now a sidewalk and a bicycle lane in both directions.
And quite a modern lighting system: the light only comes on when something moves on the road. It travels with cars, but also with bicycles or pedestrians. Each candelabra is fitted with a motion detector that uses radar to detect movement and, depending on the speed, moves with it. Without traffic, the lamps dim back to 20 percent of their luminosity.
"Sensational" - but does it need it?
This saves energy and protects wildlife. Birds in particular prefer it dark at night, as Christof Schaerer from the engineering firm Wilhelm und Wahlen in Aarau, which implemented the project, points out. The impetus for the wandering lighting came from the canton, which proposed it for the renovated road, among other things. The municipalities that own the lighting are happy with it.
"Sensational," says vice mayor Beat Heinzer, in Zetzwil responsible for construction, even. In both communities, he says, the lights are already out on the nights from Monday to Thursday anyway. Only Daniel Sommerhalder from the regional energy supplier EWS Energie is skeptical. He thinks the migrating street lighting is a good idea in terms of energy savings, but: "Is it really necessary?" After all, the system is "more complicated and more expensive" than conventional lighting.
Twelve plants in Aargau
216 such systems have already been installed by the company Elektron AG from Au ZH throughout Switzerland, twelve of them in Aargau, including the one between Zetzwil and Gontenschwil. Only recently, a new project has come on the scene: Balänenweg in Aarau is also to have lighting controlled by the movement of pedestrians or cyclists.
Published in: Aargauer Zeitung, 06.12.2018