Dubai street lighting on the rise

The length of illuminated paved streets in Dubai reached 1,410 kilometres last year, and the annual cost of maintenance an estimated Dh3.7 million, according to Dubai Municipa-lity.

The figures are expected to increase by 40 per cent this year.

The number of conventional lamp posts reached 30,000, and the number of decorative lamp posts is estimated at 3,000.

Engineer Khalid Khouri, director of the municipality's General Maintenance Depar-tment, said Dubai Municipality is compiling a book on the city's lighting and its maintenance.

He said that the book was considered unique because it contains a chronology of the phases of development of road lighting with detailed statistics on the types and number of lamp posts.

He explained that the statistics were the result of the efforts of the specialised cadres which reviewed all available documents and conducted field surveys.

He added that ever since the establishment of the General Maintenance Department in 1998, it had been working out plans which guaranteed preserving such substantial investments and attempted to provide the maximum amount of information in a manner that will serve the authorities.

About 65 per cent of lamp posts in Dubai are of a height ranging between 6-9 metres, while 30 per cent range between 10 and 18 metres.

A field survey showed that 75 per cent of them were sodium lamps and 23 per cent mercury lamps.

In terms of decorative lampposts used on pavements, 73 per cent are mercury lamps while power-saving decorative lamps represented over 20 per cent of the lamps used, with work underway to increase this ratio over the next three years according to a time schedule.