Psychological building blocks for dynamic road lighting: Understanding light's role in feelings of safety at night

Road lighting serves a host of functions at night, yet puts a substantial burden on our total energy consumption. Without exception, technical solutions to reduce the use of energy (e.g., new light sources, interactive road lighting) impact user perceptions and acceptance in ways that are not yet understood. In an experimental field study, conducted in our interactive road lighting testbed, we investigated pedestrians’ preferences for various static road lighting scenarios, in particular as they relate to feelings of safety, and the psychological mechanisms behind them. The testbed enabled us to manipulate the light, keeping other factors constant, thus offering experimental rigor and control. Following a paired-comparison paradigm, fifty female participants rated three light distributions on two street segments according to perceived safety. They then assessed each light distribution for each street segment on psychological and perceptual attributes. Research is ongoing; results will be reported at the conference