Streetlights are key to community safety and security, yet reporting an outage can still be a frustrating process. Many cities rely on outdated methods, where residents report outages using addresses or hard-to-spot pole IDs, leading to confusion, wasted resources, and incorrect repairs. And while smart LED streetlights are a step forward, simply upgrading lights doesn’t automatically streamline operations or connect residents with these improvements.
Cities like Philadelphia are leading the way in combining smart lighting with effective community engagement. Through its Streetlight Improvement project, Philadelphia uses TerraGo’s interactive map, letting residents see when their streetlights will be converted to efficient LEDs. This approach gives the community clear answers about when upgrades will reach their neighborhood and keeps them in the loop as crews make their rounds. The results? Increased satisfaction, better understanding of the program’s benefits. Furthermore, sharing this information proactively reduces customer inquiries and the workload on the customer service call center. Philadelphia and TerraGo won a 2024 Smart 20 Award for their innovative community engagement portal powered by the TerraGo platform.
In Nashville, they’re upgrading over 55,000 streetlights, enhancing safety and cutting energy costs as part of the Streetlight Retrofit Project, a collaboration between the Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County (Metro), Nashville Electric Service (NES), and Tennessee-based Path Company. With a web portal and TerraGo-powered interactive map, residents can follow project progress and get updates on when their area will be upgraded.
Georgia Power, managing nearly a million streetlights, offers a different community enagement solution using the TerraGo platform. With TerraGo’s interactive outage management portal, residents can report outages with just a click or tap, making it easier and more accurate to address issues quickly. TerraGo also prevents duplicate outage reports and keeps customers updated on restoration progress.
Transitioning to smart streetlights has huge potential to improve communities, yet the real impact comes from using these tools to boost engagement and improve service. Interactive maps and streamlined reporting systems make the process transparent, accessible, and efficient for both residents and city teams.
