Connecting street lights together in a computer-controlled network opens the door to a wide range of innovative capabilities that save energy and improve the performance of the lighting system. Beyond those applications there is an option to deploy the non-lighting solutions on the lighting network, making it a ubiquitous platform for smart city applications. The lighting functions include:
Besides the capabilities for advanced lighting controls, street lighting has potential to wide range of Smart city applications as:
Besides this, the lights can provide the network connectivity service itself e.g. using WLAN.
Interesting use case in emergency area is e.g. mounting of „panic“ button on the pole [29]. In case of any emergency or danger, the person can press this button which raises an alarm at the nearby police station. A camera can be placed on top of the street light to track these cases as well. There exist concepts [30] that use „panic“ button in mobile applications, causing the street light starts to blink, attracting the attention of people around, which could also help.