IHS: 19 percent of Transportation Lamp Revenue is LED
LED lighting is forecast to reach 19 percent of total lamp revenue in transportation lighting in 2015, according to the latest projections by IHS, Inc.
The total worldwide revenue for office lamps is projected to reach $1.0 billion in 2015, of which $0.2 billion is anticipated to be LED. LED, which is increasing its market penetration, generally has a high initial installation cost, but lower maintenance and energy costs. The other main technology is high intensity discharge (HID).
The key factors used to make decisions about transportation lighting installations are security, quality of light, upfront costs, running cost, and ease of maintenance LED does well in most of these categories; however, one notable exception is its initial installation cost, which is higher than other technologies.
In transportation lighting projects installed in 2014, service and maintenance accounted for 21 percent of project cost, compared with 58 percent for equipment, 17 percent for installation, and 4 percent for design and engineering.
Increasing use of LED lighting is only part of the story, as the lighting industry is also a shifting toward smart lighting, which is just beginning to penetrate the transportation sector, especially in urban street lighting, according to Jamie Fox, IHS' principal analyst for Lighting and LEDs.
The reasons for the shift to smart lighting are two-fold: First, it is common to dim or turn off lighting, depending on the time of day or ambient light levels; and second, centralized control of multiple street and transport lights is becoming more common. According to one rail operator, "eventually you are going to have every single light fitting monitored; you will know how it is working and when it is not working; everything will be centralised."
