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 Post subject: Re: South Coast PFI
PostPosted: Thu Jan 28, 2016 9:18 pm 
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Well, there is certainly a purge in Southampton. The Burgess Road casties have now gone, and all throughout the city there is a mass of illuminated signpost replacements going on. They are also picking off a few odd missed column replacements and lantern swaps.

Meanwhile, in Hampshire nothing much seems to be happening at all.


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 Post subject: Re: South Coast PFI
PostPosted: Fri Feb 05, 2016 1:59 pm 
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In Southampton, there are still a small number of old installations to be found which would have been originally installed by the council and are now maintained by the PFI contractors or privately by housing associations and the like.

Concrete columns
Three concrete columns survive in the city, and all are "on the books" of the PFI. One is a CU Byway X fitted with a Philips MI26 on a stub bracket, and two are unsleeved CU Midway X columns, one fitted with a GEC Z9454 which hasn't worked for a while, and the other with a Phosco P125. There have been a few false starts to replace the Byway X with MI26, but somehow it keeps evading replacement. The Midway X with P125 is currently protected by hoardings of a building site, which explains its survival to date.

SOX
In terms of lighting that is "on the books" or "should be on the books", there are two Philips MI26s, two Philips MI36s, one Phosco P125, and two GEC Z9454s. Neither of the Z9454s are working. Privately maintained, there are a number of Philips MI26s in the rear parking area of flats off Osborne Road North, visible from Thomas Lewis Way, and a number of Philips MI36s in the City Industrial Park. There are also Thorn Gamma Basiques running SOX at blocks of flats in Canal Walk and Aldermoor Road.

Mercury
Three GEC ZD815 "Baby Flying Saucers" are still in service in the city. Two are in private areas behind blocks of flats, and a third is potentially meant to be on the books but alternatively privately maintained. There are also a couple of GEC Z5590/AC Ford AC730 lanterns at Southampton Sports Centre which run mercury.

Other notable installations
Southampton Sports Centre is home to a number of cast iron columns fitted with GEC Z5590s and AC Ford AC730s, of which the majority run SON. A pair of Atlas Gamma 5 lanterns also still survive in the city, which have not worked for several years. The old high masts on the Redbridge Causeway are untouched by the PFI and really starting to show their age after nearly 50 years' service in an exposed, semi-marine location.


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 Post subject: Re: South Coast PFI
PostPosted: Sat Feb 06, 2016 6:14 pm 
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Cheers for taking the time to document the stragglers Steve it's interesting to see what few oldies survive. It's soon to be a similar story here in Plymouth with LED replacement continuing


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 Post subject: Re: South Coast PFI
PostPosted: Thu Feb 18, 2016 11:37 pm 
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Is there a reason why the lighting on the J7 roundabout M27 hasn't yet been replaced?  It's a Hampshire owned road isn't it?


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 Post subject: Re: South Coast PFI
PostPosted: Fri Feb 19, 2016 7:04 pm 
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ajm wrote:
Is there a reason why the lighting on the J7 roundabout M27 hasn't yet been replaced?  It's a Hampshire owned road isn't it?


No good reason as far as I can tell. In a couple of locations in Hampshire, old main road lighting has been retained where there are road improvement schemes planned to start within the next couple of years (eg. Whiteley Way north of M27 J9 and the southern part of Newgate Lane in Fareham), but improvements to Junction 7 aren't as imminent. Slip road widening will be happening at some stage, but dates of construction aren't clear like on Whiteley Way and Newgate Lane. There is also old lighting just off A3(M) Junction 3 heading into Waterlooville at the next roundabout, but I am not aware of any improvements there at all. I think a few locations have simply been missed.

And yes, the roundabout at Junction 7 does belong to Hampshire.


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 Post subject: Re: South Coast PFI
PostPosted: Sun Feb 28, 2016 7:53 pm 
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Southampton is down to its last concrete on public roads. A CU Midway X with Phosco P125 still stands and illuminates in French Street, still protected for time being by hoardings for adjacent building works. The second and third to last concretes in the city were replaced in the past week.

There are a couple of other concretes in the city on private land. There are these two sleeved ones off Portland Terrace. Much more notably, there is a brilliant unsleeved 1950s concrete in the West Quay substation equipped with BTH Urban Enclosed lantern.


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 Post subject: Re: South Coast PFI
PostPosted: Tue Mar 15, 2016 6:07 pm 
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In Fareham where  the A27/The Avenue passes under the railway overbridge at the station, the existing SON floodlights have been removed and replaced with new Iridiums, on new side entry wall brackets - 2 per side.

The SON floodlights were installed in the late 1980s and replaced SOX tunnel style fittings installed when the bridge was installed in the late 1960s.

The reliability of the SON floodlights were poor - outages were common, several were replaced and in later years day burners also occurred. Time will tell if modern technology in terms of RF switching will make these lanterns more reliable.


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 Post subject: Re: South Coast PFI
PostPosted: Thu Mar 17, 2016 6:39 pm 
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In West Sussex, work on the A264 at Broadbridge Heath is now complete, including work at the A281 roundabout. Work is about to start at the Farthing’s Hill Interchange with the A24.

Further towards Horsham, the Rusper Rd/A264 roundabout has finally been completed, a year after work initially started!

In Crawley, work on the A2220 Horsham Rd into the town is also complete, new cable runs have been laid for the new columns, rather than reusing the existing cabling.

In the town centre, ad hoc replacement is occurring but only to concrete columns. This example with GEC Turtle is no more, the concrete column in the background has also been replaced.


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 Post subject: Re: South Coast PFI
PostPosted: Wed Mar 23, 2016 11:42 am 
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Hampshire County Council are seeking to further dim street lighting on residential roads (i.e. the compact fluorescent Libras only).

The proposal is for dimming by 45% between dusk and midnight, 65% between midnight and 5am, and 45% between 5am and dawn.

This compares with a regime of 35%-60%-35% that was in operation from March 2015 to present, a regime of 25%-50%-25% from February 2012 to March 2015, and the original policy of 0%-25%-0%.

The proposals will result in a 10% reduction in power consumption over the present. Main roads (a.k.a, SON Iridiums) and CosmoPolis will be unaffected by the changes it seems, at least for now. As it stands, main roads apparently follow a regime of 25%-50%-25% whilst CosmoPolis is dimmed by 40% at all times, which is the maximum you can apparently dim CosmoPolis by. I'm not sure what the situation is with LED. Further investigation is going to be carried out to see if the SON lighting on main roads can have its dimming regimes adjusted, as well as dimming compact fluorescent yet even further to a 55%-65%-55% regime, as this would save 20% compared with the present.

Back when the PFI started and CosmoArcs started to appear on 6m columns, we thought it was madness. We questioned why CosmoArcs were being installed where 55W Libras were just as good. The policy of using CosmoPolis has therefore partially backfired, not so much at 8m mounting height or greater, but for all the places where it is installed at 6m mounting height, as they have now maxxed out their ability to dim this system. As for the SON lighting, they are restricted with how far they can dim without severely compromising safety on main roads. If the council still needs to find savings in the next few years I suspect the CosmoPolis and SON lighting will all be for the chop in favour of LED. The situation for compact fluorescent is starting to get a little out of hand.

Hantsweb Link


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 Post subject: Re: South Coast PFI
PostPosted: Wed Mar 23, 2016 5:06 pm 
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I suspect the issue with SON dimming is not so much road safety, as the fact that its a hot discharge lamp - compared to cold discharge with CFL.

If SON is dimmed too much, the light output will fall dramatically as the heat to produce the discharge won't be sufficient. Efficiency will also drop and as a result there won't be a linear relationship between dim amount/light and power saved.

Cosmo is already in this position as MH lamps need higher temperatures and pressures in the arc tube compared to SON.

So we may see Cosmo going first to be replaced with LED which has the additional benefit of maintenance saving over CFL. Cosmo lamps are also the most expensive which is a further nail in the coffin. As you say, they didn't think that one through.

SON might get a few more % dimming (perhaps 35-55-35) but otherwise its a massive capital cost to replace lanterns, many of which aren't yet 5 years old.

CFL responds well to dimming with a fairly linear drop in light, but the electronic ballasts will reach a plateau where by further dimming doesn't reduce power. They can't be far off that now. The other factor is lamp age, dimming increase life and therefore reduces maintenance, but an old lamp is more likely to switch off when heavily dimmed - especially when cold - in the winter. So there maybe more outages.

Its no coincidence that increased dimming levels are now being trialled and there are plenty of Libras with lamps 3-5 years old. If it weren't for dimming these would have expired by now.

Of course the alternative is selective part night as used in Wilts. For instance every other or perhaps 2 out of 3 columns are turned off on a straight road, but lights kept on at junctions. Perhaps every other one turned off on a bend. In a cul de sac there may be a light at the entrance and the end of the road left on. Hampshire said they wouldn't part night but who is to say they won't change their minds?


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