Dimming at night depending on the days of the week
The Lighting Plan 4.0 sets out a strategy for dimming the intensity of lighting on roads and motorways. The strategy has been made possible by the LED upgrades to the network, and it will result in savings in energy and CO2 emissions, while optimising user safety.
The annual consumption of lighting on roads and motorways is equivalent to the energy consumption of 25,000 households, for which average consumption totals around 3,500 KWh/year. By putting in place dimming regimes, it is possible to make savings that are the equivalent of the energy consumption of approximately 8,000 households – i.e. 32% of the current energy bill.
Before modernisation, the light intensity settings on the lights could not be changed. Any programming of the lights was therefore limited to either switching them on or off. Today, it is possible to dim LEDs on all infrastructures. Network variations vary depending on: -times of night; -days of the week; -type of road.
This dimming strategy is fundamentally based on improving user safety on the motorway and road network, as well as on energy savings. It fulfils the objective of providing the correct lighting (without too much lighting), at the right time (when there are the most users on the road in order to guarantee their safety while reducing energy bills) and in the right place (lighting is adapted in locations where there is the greatest risk to user safety).
These dimming programmes have no longer been in use on central reservations on motorways since mid-September 2022 and on trunk roads since mid-December 2022 as a result of energy-saving decisions taken by the Walloon government in the aftermath of the energy crisis.