In the Midwest
The cities of Madison, Wisconsin and St. Paul, Minnesota both undertook large-scale red traffic signal retrofits. And the City and County of Denver converted 10,000 intersections to red LEDS at a cost of approximately $1.7 million with an estimated annual savings of $360,000 in energy, labor, and materials. These jurisdictions have also recently completed retrofitting all of their green traffic signals to LEDs. The city of Evansville, Indiana has also recently upgraded all their red and green signals to the energy-saving LED technology in 2003. South Bend, Indiana seems to be the next large city in the Midwest that will take advantage of the Guaranteed Energy Savings Contract as a vehicle to retrofitting all of their existing signals in 2004.

Boston, Massachusetts
With financial support from the Boston Edison Company, Boston has retrofitted all of its 3,600 red balls, 200 red arrows, and 460 pedestrian signals for estimated savings of approximately $215,000. In a sample of approximately five intersections, the City found that it was saving an estimated 35% of the energy previously used to power those intersections. Boston is also now considering retrofitting its green signals. Additionally, several communities surrounding Boston, including the Cities of Newton and Woburn and the Town of Framingham, have retrofitted both red and green signals (including red pedestrian signals). These communities are realizing savings on the order of 50 to 60 percent of their traffic systems’ prior energy use. For more detailed case studies about these cities’ upgrade successes, please refer to Margaret Suozzo’s report to the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy entitled, LED Traffic Signal Market Transformation: An Update with Boston-Area Case Studies.
Order the report here

Pennsylvania
The city of Philadelphia undertook Citywide retrofits of 2,900 intersections (28,000 signals) to red LEDs in 1997, funded in part by a grant from Public Technologies Incorporated (PTI). Total capital costs for the retrofits were estimated at $2.2 million. The annual power cost savings from these retrofits was estimated to be $576,000 with additional cost savings of approximately $165,000 yearly from reduced maintenance and re-lamping costs. The City of Philadelphia has also decided to push LED traffic signals to the next level through a challenge to manufacturers to produce all-LED traffic signals.

New York City, New York
NYC, with the support of the New York Power Authority (NYPA), completed retrofits of 18,000 red traffic signals in the borough of Queens at an estimated energy cost savings of $325,000 and a maintenance savings of $372,000. The City’s Department of Transportation is now planning retrofits of all signals (red, green, and pedestrian) in the other Boroughs. NYPA is branching out to other communities in New York State, offering low-cost financing for LED traffic signal installations.

California
Numerous communities in California have installed red LED traffic signals – often jurisdiction-wide and typically with some utility financial support. The City and County of Sacramento, for example, retrofitted about 300 intersections with red (and in a few cases, green) LED traffic signals and are realizing savings of approximately $170,000 annually from nearly 3 million kWh of saved energy. Many municipalities served by Pacific Gas & Electric Company (PG&E) and San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E), where electric rates are much higher than in Sacramento, have retrofitted their red LED traffic signals for a total energy savings of about 70 million kWh per year.

New Success Stories to Come
As LED technology continues to improve, prices continue to drop, and the public becomes more educated about the benefits of LED traffic signals, we will see more success stories like these popping up around the country. Are you a city that has had great success with your LED upgrade project? Contact us and tell us all about it!
Once the contractor selection process for the South Bend upgrade project has been finalized, we will include in-depth information about the process we followed in pursuing this project and will provide detailed documentation and resources about how we helped our local community realize a successful upgrade. Hopefully, with greater information available, other cities will be convinced that these projects are beneficial and we will see greater cost and energy savings in traffic signal systems around the country. We hope that our well-documented success story will inspire others.