LED Tubes — Paving The Way To A Smarter Airport Lighting Solution?
When it comes to having a smart lighting solution for airports, Hartsfield-Jackson, Atlanta takes the lead, with it being one of the world’s busiest and most efficient airports and serving almost 103 million air passengers annually. The ramp lighting upgrade that it underwent in 2018 unquestionably brought huge revenues to the major air carriers such as Delta Air Lines, United Airlines, etc.
To that extent, LED tubes that can pave the way to a better future for airports that still struggle with the maintenance of conventional light sources such as HPS, HID or fluorescent tubes.
The Federal Aviation Administration coming up with standards for airport lighting necessitated several changes all of which can easily be found in LED tubes. This blog throws light on the exclusive benefits that LED Tubes brings to you.
LED Tubes — The Benefits These Bring to You!
The following are the three major benefits on which we will be laying our focus.
● LED Tubes Allows You To Stay Within Budget
● LED Tubes Provides Greater Visibility And Safety
● Reduced Maintenance and Lamp Replacement Costs
Let’s delve deeper into these benefits.
LED Tubes Allows You To Stay Within Budget
From exteriors of any airport to the interiors, LED lighting fixtures have helped many airport facility managers to stay within their budgets while making travelers feel more comfortable. LED tubes are one out of a melange of both LED outdoor and indoor lighting products and one that feeds you with a better alternative in terms of quality without pinching your pockets.
If it’s for exterior lighting for airports, it’s LED pole lights or flood lights that win the race but for interior lighting LED tubes are a good option. With DOE encouraging customers to make use of LED lighting products, LED tubes that came expensive a few years ago are now sold at very reasonable prices.
Secondly, these tubes being DLC listed make you eligible for rebates and incentives.
LED Tubes Provides Greater Visibility And Safety
You will come across many airport staff saying how tough time they had all the while until it was metal-halides or fluorescent tubes in their lounges. That is all because of the fluorescent tube ballasts that caused fluorescent tubes to start late and flicker once they got turned On.
The same issue is with metal-halides that take too long to warm up and illuminate an area besides several other issues. The LED tube is undoubtedly a better option as it comes with an internal driver for a ‘quick start-up’ without any flickering issue.
There’s greater visibility on account of it being available in both clear glass and frosted cover. With IES Aviation Lighting Committee document stating clearly the need for light fixtures to have adequate light levels but at the same time without any glare, the frosted version in LED tubes can satisfy this requirement.
Reduced Maintenance and Lamp Replacement Costs
With LED tubes installed in many numbers at several airports, these tubes brought a straight cut of more than 50% in energy consumption. The higher illuminance levels these tubes bring, both the airport staff and the passengers can have better light coverage now.
With T8, T10 or T12 fluorescent tubes lasting at the maximum for 30,000 hours, LED tubes are undoubtedly a safer bet as these can last for more than 50,000 hours. There’s less need for tube replacement before 5–6 years as there is 90% lumen retention and this is particularly so if these LED tubes are operated with lighting controls (such as dimming and daylight harvesting) to stay in good maintenance and long hours of operation.
The metal-halides or fluorescent tubes, on the other hand, retain at the most 60% of lumen output by the end of their lifespan.
In Conclusion
While those were just a few of the many benefits offered by LED tubes, there’s much more. LED tubes offer directional lighting often with a beam angle of 220°, the light can cover long enough distance at the airports. With no light pollution and ballast bypass option, these LED tubes can be found in several color temperatures to provide you with an ambient, task or display lighting.
These light colors not only enhance the aesthetics of the airport but provide passengers with a pleasant feeling.
