Challenge

On Flemish motorways, road lights are lit only where they are needed. Specifically, lights go off when possible, and stay on when necessary.

In 2011, the Agency for Roads and Traffic (AWV) developed a lighting vision in response to the European Union's climate objective of reducing energy consumption by 20% by 2020. Since then, the number of illuminated road sections fell by almost half.

Currently, road lighting is controlled on the basis of historical traffic intensities and weather forecasts for each province. However, local and real-time data on traffic intensity and weather conditions are available. By combining rule-based algorithms and machine learning, internal and external data sources can be integrated into the current system that controls road lighting.

AWV wishes to use this data to make more accurate and location-specific decisions on whether or not road lighting should be on a specific road segment. In this way, AWV can make a more efficient contribution to climate objectives and to promoting road safety. Moreover, the system will also allow to significantly reduce the workload of operators.