Acuity supplies smart LED area lighting for mall parking lots

Simon Property Group and Acuity have partnered on two pilot projects testing LED-based street lights in mall parking lots with sensors on the luminaires that can monitor the density of autos in the lots.

Acuity Brands has announced two pilot installations of networked LED-based area lighting that includes sensors to monitor occupancy in mall parking lots. Simon Property Group engaged with Acuity to trial the smart solid-state lighting (SSL) systems at Lenox Square in Atlanta, GA and Florida Mall in Orlando, FL. The trials will be used to determine how connected occupancy sensors can improve traffic and parking management at the large shopping complexes.

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Connected sensors on street and area lighting have long been viewed as having the ability to layer value-added service onto smart lighting networks. For example, Current Powered by GE has been testing sensor-equipped fixtures in San Diego, CA with the initial goal of enforcing parking regulations and the ultimate goal of directing drivers to vacant spots.

In the Acuity trial, the company is installing video sensors on the parking lot lights, The sensors allows the company to capture real-time data at the level of determining whether individual spaces are filled or available. That data is wirelessly transmitted to a control platform and presented in a dashboard that can display heat maps, allowing easy visualization of parking density and where spaces are available. Ultimately, Acuity and Simon want to make the data available to arriving customers looking for spots.

"This pilot will provide an opportunity to test an enhanced system for our parking areas, allowing us to easily and quickly identify congested areas and redirect customers to available parking," said Tim Earnest, executive vice president of Simon Management Group. "This is one of the many ways we are looking at how to improve the experience of our customers by providing amenities that make shopping even more convenient and enjoyable."

Simon has installed Acuity LED-based lighting in a total of 26 locations. The plan with the sensor-based system is further testing and validation in the coming months. Simon hopes to offer a parking app to customers by the end of 2016 and extend the technology to cover more of its shopping facilities.

"Simon Property Group is leading the industry in terms of leveraging Acuity Brands technology to deliver on multiple fronts," said Lance Hollner, vice president of business development for Internet of Things (IoT) solutions at Acuity. "We look forward to creating a parking and traffic management solution for initial use by Simon, and with broad appeal to other smart parking applications within retail, campus or city applications."

Parking services are just one of many applications being considered for deployment in connected outdoor SSL. We covered a number of such applications in our report from the Street and Area Lighting conference. Examples range from accurate metering of power usage to detecting the location of gun shots in high-crime areas.