Metodutveckling för att studera allmänhetens respons på energieffektiv utomhusbelysning

Artificial outdoor lighting for pedestrians should provide for a safe and secure outdoor environment after dark. Pedestrian lighting thereby has implications for active transportation and sustainable mobility. Installations of new energy efficient lighting applications should be evaluated in terms of pedestrian’s perception, evaluation and behaviour in the lit environment. Today there is a lack of methods to assess such pedestrian responses, in particular pedestrian behaviour. In a multidisciplinary context this project aimed to develop two methods to capture pedestrians’ behavioural responses possible to employ in urban outdoor spaces and among different user groups: Random Environmental Walking (REW) and Video Analysis of Pedestrian Movement (VAPM). Development of REW and VAPM was carried out in a series of empirical studies. In the final studies the new methods were combined with established methods in environmental psychology. It is proposed that REW and VAPM could complement lighting standards and energy measures to obtain optimal solutions for outdoor lighting. At present REW and VAPM work well in a research context, but further refinement of the procedures and analyses will be necessary for large scale implementation. VAPM constitutes a special case as the mounting of cameras in public spaces increasingly requires special permit, at least in Sweden. The development of REW aimed to obtain pedestrians’ behavioural preference of outdoor lighting applications. The REW was tested in a within-subject design with 80 participants who evaluated four lighting applications placed close to each other in an urban park: Application 1 was a clear Ceramic Metal Halide (CMH), Lighting Application 2 was a frosted CMH, Lighting Application 3 was Light-Emitting Diode (LED), Lighting Application 4 was a LED. The results of REW showed that the participants walked most frequently to Application 3, indicating that this was the behaviorally preferred lighting application. This result agreed well with participants’ self-report ratings of their visual experience of the lit environment and perceived lighting qualities. In this respect, REW was shown to be a viable technique for use in the field. The VAPM aimed to provide detailed data on pedestrians’ microscopic movement. VAPM was tested in a between-subject design with 62 participants who evaluated two lighting applications along a 130 meter traffic-separated walking and cycle path. Twenty-nine participants walked the path with Application I (Philips SGS203 50 Watt SON-T, mounted at lamp-posts with a distance of 33 meters), thirtythree participants walked the path with Application II (Philips P17 Master City White CDO/ET 50W/828, mounted at lamp-posts with a distance of 16.5 meters). In Application II the illuminance on the path was considerable increased. The results of VAPM revealed that participants walked systematically closer to the centre-line of the path in Application II as compared to Application I. Participants assessed Application II to provide better conditions to see along the path but the surroundings where considered too dark, indicating that the brighter and more focused light created a visual tunnel. The VAPM showed a great potential in capturing pedestrian behaviour under different lighting applications. The research project has been situated at Lund University and carried out in close collaboration with Malmö City and Axis Communications