Parking Lot Lights: A Comprehensive Guide

Contents
Parking Lot Lights A Comprehensive Guide

In an era when most people own a car, the construction of the parking lot becomes more and more important. When it comes to building a parking lot that can meet the needs of the public, the parking lot lights are one factor that everyone must consider. Therefore, we collected all the information about parking lot lights and can’t wait to share it with you. You will definitely find this comprehensive guide to parking lot lighting helpful!

Why should you use parking lot lights?

Ideal parking lot lighting design, instead of casually lighting up the needed places, will provide uniform lighting of a high standard and thus make driving and parking at night safer and easier. If there isn’t sufficient lighting, or even worse, inappropriate lighting that causes glare or has other negative effects, the drivers will feel more tired and cannot park their cars smoothly. Besides, parking lots with dim lighting will attract thieves and cannot help protect the properties of the car owners.

You may think that, as the coverage of parking lots is generally large, it must cost a lot to install so many lights. Yet on the contrary, when you use the right light source and pay attention to the design of parking lot lighting, you will reap considerable economic benefits. The lights will effectively reduce the costs of manual management and save energy because of their high efficiency. Moreover, nowadays many parking lot lights apply the system of smart control, which is very helpful to save on the costs.

What lighting is best for parking lots?

HID and LED parking lot lights

The mainstream light sources are HID lights and LED lights. The truth is that HID lights have become outdated nowadays. Even though they seem to be cheaper than LED lights at the beginning, considering the overall costs in the long run, LED lights are the correct choice for a plenty of advantages. We can compare several of their features:

Lifespan: As a type of outdoor LED street lights, lifespan is very important to parking lot lights. Theoretically, the service life of HID lights is normally 12000 hours, and that of LED lights is around 25000 hours. Moreover, we need to consider it in real-life situations. For example, how many possibilities are there for them to break down? And the answer is that HID lights are more likely to quit working. The reason lies in their working principles. Every time the HID lights start working, they will need high voltage, which increases the risk.

Light efficiency: Light efficiency determines how much power a light uses when producing light of the same brightness. So it is also closely related to your power bills. The light efficiency of HID lights is lower than 92 lm/w, while that of LED lights can be more than 100 lm/w. The high efficiency also makes LEDs a cold light source that doesn’t produce so much heat.

CRI: LED has a CRI of between 65 and 80, while the CRI of HID lights is only 20. This is an especially important factor for the parking lot lights, as the higher the CRI, the clearer the vision they can provide. When drivers are trying to park their cars in the right position, they will need lights with a high CRI.

What size are parking lot lights?

The first thing you may want to know is how tall your lights should be and how to place them. Usually, the height of the street lights is between 10 and 15 meters. But the actual height depends on the size of your parking lot. Like the street lights, the height can be roughly calculated considering the width of the roads. If the lights are set on one side of the road, the height should be greater than the width of the road.

As for how to distribute the lights, you can choose from lighting patterns including Type I, II, III, IV, and V. These five distribution patterns illuminate areas of different shapes, and the width of them is also different. Normally, lights of types I and II are more suitable for some narrow streets. For parking lots of different sizes, they usually apply type III, IV, and V patterns that make oval, semicircular, and circular shapes of light.

five lighting patterns of parking lot lights

How many illuminance is needed for a parking lot?

According to the traffic in different parking lots, the illuminance needed is different. You can find the exact requirements of the parking lot light for different uses in the following table:

Places of the parking lotIllumination standard value (lx)Uniformity of illuminance
Apartments, small stores with light traffic50.25
Office buildings, medium stores, stadiums with middle-level traffic100.25
Schools, big supermarkets, stadiums with heavy traffic20-300.25

Besides meeting the requirements of illumination, uniformity is also important. A low level of uniformity means that some places are bright and others are dark. Even though you have set enough parking lot lights, it will look the same as if you set only a few of them.

What’s more, at the entrance and exit of the parking lot, managers need to charge the drivers and get to know their identifications, so the light should be brighter. Other places that need brighter light include those with signposts and railings.

What is the color temperature of parking lot lights?

Light with a high color temperature can improve brightness and visibility, but if the color temperature is too high, the light will cause glare and visual fatigue. Normally, a color temperature under 4000 K is an ideal standard for parking lot lights.

Conclusions

Parking lot lights are indispensable for parking lots, and to choose and set them correctly, you need to consider many factors. For constructing a parking lot that the drivers are satisfied with, seeking the help of professional manufacturers is a wise choice. As the leader in the Chinese LED manufacturing industry, Mokolight is able to provide you with LED lights that consist of components from first-class suppliers like Samsung and Osram. Besides, every production procedure is strictly supervised and has gone through multiple tests, such as incoming article inspection, in-process quality control, etc., to ensure high quality. Contact us right now for a mature parking lot lighting solution!

Written by ——
Scott Hughes
Scott Hughes
Double Bachelor's degrees in Architecture and Electrical Engineering, 5+ years of experience with LED lighting, intelligent moving lights, and conventional fixtures. Reach Me Now>>
Scott Hughes
Scott Hughes
Double Bachelor's degrees in Architecture and Electrical Engineering, 5+ years of experience with LED lighting, intelligent moving lights, and conventional fixtures. Reach Me Now>>
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