Sodium-vapour lamps will continue to be the primary lighting type used on Malaysian roads and highways. According to Works Minister Datuk Seri Fadillah Yusof, the whiter light emitting diode (LED) street lamps will only be used in certain applications, depending on requirement, as well as replacement for old street lamps, Bernama reports.
Experts are divided regarding the use of LEDs, especially from the technical aspects, he said. “Some experts say the current (yellow) lighting is more suitable for roads, while the LED (white light) is suitable for housing areas because it is brighter,” Fadillah explained.
“The current (yellow) lighting is more open and spacious, compared to LED lights that are more focused on one area,” he told reporters yesterday. Fadillah explained that evaluation based on a pilot installation of LED streetlights on stretches of the Middle Ring Road 2 (MRR2) revealed that the lighting aspects were found to be less than ideal, especially during rainy conditions.
In related matters, he explained that street lights cannot be installed along the entire stretches of highways in the country because it involves significant cost as well as have a negative environmental impact. “If all roads had street lighting installed, it would incur a high level of fuel consumption, and this will produce carbon dioxide gas that will pollute the environment,” he said.
He added that the placement of street lighting on highways is only focused near ramps and exits or other areas with high traffic to avoid any possibility of an accident. “No country has highway lighting covering the entire route. In Malaysia, reflective strips are installed in areas with no street lighting present to warn motorists.”
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“If all roads had street lighting installed, it would incur a high level of fuel consumption, and this will produce carbon dioxide gas that will pollute the environment,” he said.
Not quite sure what he meant..or was he misquoted as usual. Because that statement made no sense at all. Its just as bad as saying funny plates cause accidents.
“No country has highway lighting covering the entire route. ”
Eh, Belgium?
Its fuel used for electricity generation. We are still primarily using petrol, coal & natural gas as our main sources of electricity , so installing thousands of street lighting will definitely cause environmental pollution due to increased electricity demand.
tnb is suck
Government want non LED bulbs to use more electricity lah. Then each state use our LHDN income tax money to pay the high TNB bills.
TNB raised their prices so much despite this year making a record profits of billions and highest ever returns. So, why even increase electricity rates last year when TNB is making so much of money?
Do you see the trend now?
Whenever there is money, government wanna grab (number plate scanner for outstanding summons)
Whenever money needed to be spent, you slow slow wait.
why suddenly TNB is suck here? are you reading the article?
why suddenly TNB is suck here? are you reading the article?
Yeah its fuel to generate electricity. It doesnt make sense because using led consume less energy resulting on less usage of fuel to generate electricity. Get it?
But the LED is expensive,
but for me, the make it orange/amber colour
as in the rain the white coloured LED make driver harder to see compare to the orange coloured
Dont matter LED or sodium vapor,
White for housing area
Orange for street
Very simple to decipher. TNB is owned by the Government. Whatever TNB makes, it will go into the pockets of the Government.
So the rakyat’s money, can be used to pay the big TNB bills of each state. They will just say, “cost of running the town and state”
This is an indirect way to sapu our LHDN money. If they use LED, the bills will be more than half less. But why bother? Let us screw the rakyat up even more and our shareholders of TNB will untung. Who are the big shareholders of TNB? Khazanah and EPF. Both Government.
Operating expenditure (OPEX) is one thing bro. What about the capital expenditure (CAPEX)of replacing the old technology with LED? LED is still relatively new technology. thus the cost of manufacturing them is still high. Let it be in few years time for the authority to change the lighting
So darker is better…
Singapore too. XD
Malaysian Minister mana ada otak punya….
Otak udang lagi valuable…..
“No country has highway lighting covering the entire route.” Untrue. The entire UAE highway network is streetlit.
the only fully lit highway network is in belgium
Hence his statement is incorrect.
Sheikh zayed highway dubai good example
DAT A45 AMG THO
Unless I’m outdated, Sodium vapour light still has higher lumen per watt rating than a solid state LED light, even more so when you compare warm colour LEDs to sodium vapour.
Also, like the article mentioned, warm light do better in the rain. If there’s any flashlight geeks here, I’m sure they know the need to have a warm light for more “piercing power” in the rain to see better as the droplets reflects less.
That is correct, sodium vapor lamps are still far more photoptically efficient than LED lights because they emit monochromatic light at a wavelength corresponding to the peak sensitivity of the human eye. The downside is that nearly all color information is lost, but this hasn’t been an issue for night driving.
Achieving a similar perceived brightness using LEDs would cost at least twice as much electricity if not more. They would only be used in areas where color fidelity is important and worth the expense.
Dat brain :D
Trying driving at NKVE at night where they draw and redraw the lane line with different color (old line = white, new line = yellow) and try again at night when it’s raining. Now tell me again the color information is not important….
I actually find that the blacken white strips (for rerouting purposes) shines better than yellow lines at night. Seriously, use a matte paint to darken them please.. or else ppl might follow the “shiny” black strips and end up in an MRT pillar.
what does street lamps got to do with fuel consumption?
“If all roads had street lighting installed, it would incur a high level of fuel consumption”
He should be referring to TNB, which should be using fuel to generate energy…
More electricity consumed = more fuel burnt
lamp post can be everywhere for a clean country
“If all roads had street lighting installed, it would incur a high level of fuel consumption”
I’m sure what he means by that are the fuel consumption needed to generate electricity for the lighting.
the main electric power producer for our country came from coal and petroleum gas..
only small portion of energy supplied by hydro, solar, landfill and many more.. please refer KETHHA website
crack head, as usual talking through their back side.
Tender still pending so all status quo
after that there will be a change in policy.
u know I know lah !!!
Dia belum bangun lagi, street lighting make high FC?
Man..look at that ass..
“No country has highway lighting covering the entire route.”
Ask him to go to the highway that connect Abu Dhabi to Dubai… you can drive with your car light off at night.
isn’t LED is more environmental friendly? No?
Street light consume fuel? Oh I think she meant electric power consume fuel.
So the lives of Malaysian is cheap as usual, car no air bags, no vsc and now highway no light also nvm.
no airbag car is for other ASEAN country or ASEAN neighbour country not boleh..
hello…..ever heard of solar lightning?????
the “geniuses” up there.
Solar lights for the park, yes. Highway lights? I don’t think so.
Each sodium vapour lamp could use as little as 35w to a whopping 1000w. I’m guessing 150w-400w, as some looks brighter than the others.
Now, a 300w solar panel from LG would be about 5 feet long and 3.5 feet wide. Assuming 100% efficiency in power conversion and maximum sunlight exposure, you’ll need one of these huge panels for every single lamp bulb.
Then the cost, every panel, battery, charging circuit would probably add rm3000 or more for every single light, and who knows how much it will cost ultimately to tax payers. And what about rainy days when it’s dark the entire day?
What about the heavy pollution of manufacturing batteries and solar panel?
Solar power is the future, I’m no saying it’s not, but it’s not mature enough yet.
Why are solar powered street lamps not an option? Too expensive to implement?
cost of maintaining…even normal lamp post cannot maintain..u ask solar lamp post?
Malaysia highway need to have lighting for entire route for spotting vehicle parked at the emergency lane or even spotting pothole at night. Some emergency lane is not big enough for lorry or truck to fit in. This has cause many accident even Karpal Singh life.
Why not make it yellow LED light.. I see LED light can be made you know red, yellow, orange or whatever you want it.. Is it possible?
This is just an educated guess, since I do not know the specification of our street lamps, whether it’s low pressure sodium or high pressure sodium lamp, and it’s wattage, but here goes:
Assume every light is low pressure sodium @ 250w each, with 180lm/watt output
Yellow colour LED outputs less lumen per watt than white/blueish white, but still assume it’s of high quality and 90lm/watt.
So to achieve the same output, you’ll need 2x the power, which means 500 watt.
If there’s 500,000 street lamps in Malaysia, that’s extra 250w x 12 hours of light * 500,000 / 1000 = 1,500,000 kw of power extra every night.
Numbers may be inaccurate but that’s a hell lot of extra electric bills we have to pay through tax.
Coming from the lighting industry I would have to disagree with some of the comments here. For one, the system efficacy of LED systems has surpassed those of HPS systems. The pilot project done at MRR2 is 4 years old and at that point of time the technology was much lower.
Being familiar with the pilot project, I have to add that the main area of concern (besides the illumination levels) was at the reliability of the products used. It is not about the LED technology but it is about the specific product that they used.
To maximise the benefits from LED street lighting we would have to ensure that the products comply to a set of stringent standards, and before some of you go on and post about the govt. inefficiencies regarding these standards I would like to let you know that the Department of Standards in consultation with a technical committee comprised of local lighting industry experts (no,I am not talking about those under the ‘preferential’ scheme, but actual industry experts (local private companies and MNCs) have come up with a set of national standards that is in compliance with the IEC standards.
JKR has made these standards mandatory. If a product that complies to these standards are used, there is no doubt that LED technology is at present among the most energy efficient lighting product to replace HPSV systems.
The major thing the govt. should be looking into is making sure that the right, qualified products are used and not just any unknown products that ‘parachute’ in.
Is there any chance that you might have some information on the street lamps that we use? I’m just very interested in lights but I don’t even know if we’re using low or high pressure sodium lamps.
If you say the latest LED can outperform the efficiency of high pressure sodiums I’d believe that, but it’s no where near the low pressure sodium lamps yet right?
I’ve yet to hear people shouting about 200lm/watt LED yet.
i still unable to see clearly with LED when there is rain or after at night.
Yes Agree with you.
could you be mr nabil hidayat from shah alam?
Dear mat,
yes I agree with you the LED may have surpass the HPS systems. But here we are not talking about systems. we are talking about safety and visibility. I believe you can google to find out more why highways recommend those neon coloured lights than just white lights.
perhaps you can take a drive along certain stretch of Federal highway or karak highway and sincerely observe yourself how straineous your visual and dangerous it is with whit lights especially when its foggy.
Well, there’s another option, solar panel.
LED street lamps, those that the malaysian gomen/ councils buy only last 3-4 months, then all flickering or burnt out.
Not agree on the statement
1. Middle Ring Road – You look properly on the installed LED. Some of the light poles are not fully lit with 1-2 row black out.
2. LED perform better during night time because less glaring compare to conventional type of lighting.
3. The spot are more wider too.
4. Why some of LED are in warm white while some are brighter?
5. Agree entire UAE, QATAR highway are fully lit. Please do more research.
6. Our Road condition poorly build without appropriate line marker and non reflective guard rail and bad sign board is the cause of confusion to the driver. While in other country especially Europe, their road even though are not light up, their road condition, marking, and reflective guard rail are much better ! That is why they don’t have the entire network lights up, and ours? even worse when there is a road construction, Look at the condition at the sg buloh – shah alam road widening. Without the lights there, will you able to see it clearly ? NKVE.?
We are the only country that uses LED steet lights along highways. Other develop countries, you can only find it along housing area or as security lighting in commercial complexes ie.. Ports, Storage facilities, loading docks etc…
Sodium is still a better choice for street lighting.
it is not so. LED is use all over China highways. On the other hand, yellow lights are always safer and as said earlier, I wonder whose idea is it to change to LED without knowing the danger of LED lights as far as visibility is concern. sad to note.
I noticed at every corner or ‘selekoh’ always no lights. Is this one of the method not to make people go fast speeds at the corners?
I recently went to jb,and i can say once ur out of kl,the pathetic road although smooth,has absolutly no lighting til u reach jb,jus too dark…
That cant be safe specially alot of idiots on the road are not aware that their rear lights or brake lights are not working…maybe we should clean up those dirty kl buses with their cloud filled black smoke only then when can talk about being friendly to the environment
you should drive in australia.. they have very little street lighting outside of the cbd area.. and it gets really really dark once you hit any of the highways.its very dark in most suburbs also
Since PLUS earn billion of rinngit, they should install street light on their entire route. With this the accident rate will be reduce. This is for sure, but I doubt they will incur this cost. Might affect their bonus or own pocket money.
You tau I tau Semua Tau
It’s a case of maximising profits over safety . PLUS is making 1 billion ringgit profit per year yet it’s still reluctant to lighten up the entire stretch of the highway . I was once involved in an accident with a crossing animal on PLUS highway at night and it’s frigtening . No headlight can light up well the roads infront of you well esp if the animals come from the sides suddenly .
I am just wondering whose idea to install white LED lights on highways without checking it first !!! yellow lights are use for safety reason mainly visibility and in all weather conditions. On the other hand, white lights tend to attract more insects.
Agree with ED Tan.
White (LED) light is very good for clear nights, ok on rainy nights and terrible on foggy roads. Regardless, the government should move to LED over time and do away with Sodium vapour.
As this country has no interest in the environment, hybrid cars are expensive and decides to continue to sodium vapour bulbs.
I have drive from KL to Malacca …..at some place you can see that Plus or Works Minister have ask to install the white light. This kind of light already remove since years ago to replace Yellow Light because Yellow Light is more good for eyes and during Raining day is better and clear this already prove.
That White light is really stress for our eyes compare with Yellow light . Hope that ours good Plus and Works Minister have really study on it and replace back the Yellow light.
Talk cock no country has cover their highway with street lamp. I can say malaysia’s highway is one of the worst. Where are all the street lamps? I can name a list of countries that actually cover their highway with bright street lamp and also with good infrastructure quality.
Singapore has gazetted that it is illegal to make the road use for public if there are not street lights. Yes i know small country they can afford it. Anyhow statement wrong that no country has their highways lighted up.
environmental pollution caused by burning coal for electricity is true, we should use alternative sources to light up jalan kampung / trunk road. Solar energy is good, but why not just make a small hydro electric dam from the river/stream in that area and power up the street lights. !! why just depend on one source of energy from TNB. Just like micro lending and financing, perhaps there should be avenue for micro hydro powered industries.
So many scholar in the country, so many grant given to corporation, not a single one can develop Solar reserve energy for LED street light?
The white lights is less stress to the eye. because you can see things more clearer, that result in less stress on focusing on the road. As for raining, you are suppose to drive slower. If the LED light cause the glare whenever raining, then you should not have drive whenever raining during the day, that glare is even worse than night.
Yellow light although cover more area but because it is dimmer, when driver needed to focus on the road for things (ie debris and potholes on the road, cars with bikes with faulty rear lamp, lorry breakdown at the roadside) The yellow light will stress the eyes a lot more. Just like you find it harder to read a book with warm lights at your condo.
Road light infrastructure is not about pleasure on the eyes. It is about prolong your focus on the road and create less fatigue as possible.
Btw, there are not study to say that yellow light perform better than LED light to driver, none, but there is prove that LED lights use lesser energy than yellow lights.
NA,I am from the lighting industry as well. There is actually a write up on Highway lights. Do google for share. Here we are discussing about safety rather than cost.
there are always 2 side of a coin so depend which side one is looking from. But here we are discussing about safety and not asking people not to drive. A fact is a fact that white lights for highways has been discontinue for a long time for many reasons and among them are safety during dew, mist or raining.
China uses LED white light widely not so much of safety factor but due energy savings and they are the no.1 producer of LED lights.
To name a few, you don’t see developed countries like Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore or even Philippines use LED lights along their highways. Here I am not talking about street lamp.
I believe our Malaysia authority may not be aware of the differences between ‘White’ LED against Neon color lights for the highway. Perhaps they just thinking of ‘Cheap’ cost without really comparing the safety and environment aspect.
Just incase anyone is wondering.. The cause of poor visibility during rainy condition because of the white light emmited.. Light emmiting diode (led) street lighting are also available in the amber colour that people are used too.. And I know this because I know the people who are selling it.. Just sharing a piece of information I know..