Islamabad’s streetlights to be automated

ISLAMABAD: It has been decided to install a modern automatic streetlights system in the Capital instead of the 62-year-old manual system of turning them on and off, which will save both human resources and electricity.

In the first phase, as a pilot project, the streetlights of two roads, Seventh Avenue and Saddar Road of Sector G-6 have been connected to the computer. A timer has been set in the computer for sunset and sunrise times. 

The streetlights turn on and off at the set time. The system has been running successfully for three weeks. In the present manual system, the staff of the CDA streetlights division goes to each sector. Hundreds of on-off boxes are installed all over the city. The crew first turns on and then off the lights of each street.

An hour is required for the work in one sector. Now this work is done with only one computer. There are about 42,000 streetlights in Islamabad. Going to automation of all these systems will save staff and energy as a lot of time is wasted in manual on-off. Automation will also make monitoring better and more efficient.