Maintenance must be considered from the earliest design stages of a lighting project. Top-quality materials should be specified and then arranged or located to protect the components from the potential hazards of the environment, whether these be rain, moisture, ultraviolet degradation, or threat of vehicular impact. After a system is installed and tested for operation and for component integrity, proper maintenance procedures can produce continued high performance of the roadway lighting system. If the lighting system is not properly maintained, the responsible authorities may expose themselves to potential liability—plus increased costs if expendable items are not replaced as they reach the end of their service life, because they can cause other components to fail.
There are many reasons to routinely maintain a lighting system. The first reason is that only through good maintenance can the system continue to perform as designed. No matter how much knowledge and skill goes into the design, and how much care is put into the installation inspections and final system testing, the system will not provide the performance expected of it if regular maintenance is not performed. In addition to the legal liabilities of a substandard lighting system, the condition of the system reflects the civic concern of the responsible agency. A lighting system containing faults such as burned out lamps, dirty luminaires, or knocked-down poles reflects a poor attitude that is very noticeable. Another factor is that the electrical energy costs are more or less constant even though the light on the roadways may be significantly reduced, so the economic efficiency is decreased.
