I was just wondering, if you were given the task of specing the lighting for various installations, what would you chose and why?
This being an international site I think the variations will be quite interesting!

State what you would use for the following areas:

1) Residential street.
2) Side road.
3) Main road.
4) Dual carriageway. (That would be a split highway across the pond?)
5) Motorway. (Freeway for our colonial cousins)
6) City centre.
7) Outdoor carpark.
8) Large area (docks, large road junctions ect).
9) Cycle/Footpath.

My choices would be:

1) Philips FGS224 Residium with either 36 or 55w PL-L lamps.
2) Philips XGS103 with 26w SOX-E lamps.
3) Industria Arc with 150w CDO-TT lamps.
4) Philips SGS306 with 250w SON-T lamps.
5) Philips MA60 with 180w SOX lamps.
6) iGuzzini Nuvola with 250w HQI-TS lamps.
7)Thorlux Azmet 3 with 250w SON-T lamps.
8) CU Phosco P213 high mast with 8 x 400w SON-T lamps.
9) WRTL 2600 with 50w CDO-TT lamps.

Here it would be

1 MH nema Head in resdental streets
2. 100 watt HPS FCO cobra head side road
3. 250 watts HPS OVW for main road
5. 400 watts HPS OVW for interstate and main hiway
6. Radial wave reproduction with CMH 150 watts
7. Any discharge lighting they wish they used in parking
Lots
8. Hi mast 400 watt HPS GE powerfloods
9. 100 watt deco type post tops with iwaski moon pulse
Mv lamps

My reasoning:
General:
All of these are outdoor installations, so exposed to large temperature ranges, mainly the cold during winter. That put the fluorescents out of the game.
Then most of the installations require quite good beam shaping to reach good uniformity, so low intensity large surface light sources are out of the game.
So for that remains just the HPS, MH and LED.
Now I do not have exact list of fixtures, but I think I would be able to select from catalogues:

1) Medium to low lighting levels are sufficient, spill light large problem, usually low poles a plus. That means quite low lumen packages, so I would go for ~20..30W LED on ~4m poles, spaced about 15m, if possible alternatively on both sides of the street.
2) First question would be, why such road should be illuminated at all, the lighting design would be then more specific for the local conditions and so the reason why it was requested. Otherwise I would assume even lower level would be sufficient, so ~30W LEDs (lower CRI more efficient types with lower input power) on ~6m poles, spaced 25..30m on one side to suffice with just one trench for the feed cable (the trench digging uses to be the most expensive item on the final bill)
3) The required illumination depends on the traffic, long stretches, higher poles not a problem, so 8..12m poles spaced about 50m with 150W HPS with a dimmer system to allow power reduction for low traffic hours. Best directly responding on the actual traffic density.
4) 12..16m with 150W HPS, spaced 50..80m on each side (interleaved) otherwise the same as above.
5) ~20m poles ~80m spaced inside of the median with double 250W HPS (each head for each direction), again adaptive dimming
6) Decorative, good color rendering, higher cost not as big problem, so CMH's, the power depend on the actual position.
7) high poles, 4..6 fixtures per pole, probably ~150W HPS
Same as above, docks will use more floods, road junction would have to be better controlled against glare
9) Same as residential, so ~20..30W LED, but with optics more focused to narrower and longer strip. Spacing would be nearly double.

All of these are outdoor installations, so exposed to large temperature ranges, mainly the cold during winter. That put the fluorescents out of the game.

Bad experiences with them in the Czech Republic, where they almost appear to be the standard for post-1989 installations on residential streets, as default replacement for old MV/HPS luminaires? I have not seen PL-L installations in cold winter nights so far but would not expect the worst from closed fixtures. And otherwise I found them really nice.

Concerning the original question in general: An opinion would first require to check out the current offerings from luminaire manufacturers. It seems that in recent years a lot of nice stuff has been newly introduced.

Bad experiences with them in the Czech Republic, where they almost appear to be the standard for post-1989 installations on residential streets, as default replacement for old MV/HPS luminaires? I have not seen PL-L installations in cold winter nights so far but would not expect the worst from closed fixtures. And otherwise I found them really nice.

Yes, from places where they were installed (include our village).
The enclosed fixture is by far not sufficient, when we had below freezing and even weak wind, it was just dark.
And on top of that they created very large differences between bright spots just below the lanterns and dark areas between poles, so due to the large differences the visibility was rather poor. And as they cast a lot of light upwards into nearby appartment buildings, you had to use blinders and that mean no natural morning light to wake up at morning.
In our village they got replaced by LED's, the beam pattern is by far much better. The ratio between dark and bright areas on the roads and walkways is no more than 1:2, so it really appear very brightly lit, although the raw lumen output of the LED's is barely above 1/2 of the former fluorescents. And their cut off line is rather sharp, about 5 degrees below the horizon, so you can sleep well and get woken by dawn, so way more comfortable.

Wow, the post-1990 installations already get replaced again? In Germany 30+ years old installations are not rare at all. What were in fact the predecessors of the now removed FL fixtures?


And concerning the original question: Leipziger Leuchten products, to support regional companies.

1/ Antje I with PL-L (spacing as circumstances permit, 1 or 2 x 18 or 24 watts as required to achieve E 5 lx, Emin 1 lx).

2/ ASL 2007 with Cosmopolis 45 watts.

3/, 4/, 5/ Cosma I with Cosmopolis (mast height and spacing as circumstances dictate, 60/90/140 watts as then required for the applicable lighting class).

6/ Around old buildings Albrecht/1, else Anton I/1, Cosmopolis, wattage as required for E 10 lx.

7/ ASL 2010/1 on high poles, HPS 150 watts.

8/ No floods for 400/1000 watts to offer? Have to go to the competition...

9/ Antje I LED. The very broad light distribution, allowing a wide spacing, is tantalizing to venture into this technology I still not fully trust because all claims about the lifetime of the light sources are just that, claims lacking any confirmation so far.

That's a quite interesting discussion! I was working for Schreder AG for 3 years and I did several calculations in Lighting simulations and it was one of many tasks to decide which latern I have to choose for the given road, path and other installations.
Now I'm doing this job for our council I currently work for.

Here my solution which I would do for our City with currently available products:

1) Residential street >> HESS Residenza CDM-T 35W/830
1a) Residential street >> PHILIPS Koffer2 LED Mini BGP 060 1600lm NeutralWhite 4000K
2) Side road >> PHILIPS Iridium SGS 254 SON-TPP 50W
2a) Side road >> PHILIPS Koffer2 LED BGP100 3900lm NeutralWhite 4000K
3) Main road >> PHILIPS Iridium SGS 354 SON-TPP100W + Dynadimmer
4) Dual carriageway >> PHILIPS Iridium SGS 354 SON-TPP 100W (150W for slip roads and exits)+ Dynadimmer
5) Motorway >> PHILIPS Iridium SGS 354 SON-TPP 100W + Dynadimmer
6) City centre >> GICS Modell Ritter 501 1x HCI-E/P 35W/830 for the Old Town
7) Outdoor carpark >> SCHREDER Ambar 2 SON-TPP 70W
Large area (docks, large road junctions ect) >> PHILIPS OptiFLOOD MVP 506 CDO-TT up to 250W/830
9) Cycle/Footpath >> SCHREDER Happiled 16W LED Post-Top Luminaire

What we have not considered at all so far: Pole height and distance?

And I think we all assumed building a completely new installation. But what about cases where something exists? Under which circumstances is it appropriate to start from scratch and in which cases is it reasonable to replace only the luminaires (in fact financial restraints will often dictate this approach as long as the existing poles are not in a state of disrepair), which of course means that the luminaires have to be choosen to match the given pole heights and distances?

Wow, the post-1990 installations already get replaced again?

Well, they have to be, the PL-L never worked properly.
And beside that, it is already 20 years old, so really start to disintegrate. It was installed in the 90's, because the earlier MV was after it's 20 years of service in terrible state.
In some places they just rebuild the lighting again with MV's, somewhere they have installed HPS and somewhere they surrendered the pressure from the green-brainers from Austria (I would guess they send them to hell there, so they have tried the luck here) and installed the fluorescents. From the perspective of that time there was a promise of one improvement: The PL-L offered superior light quality. But that advantage was dunked when the first winter come and there was just no real light from there.

What we have not considered at all so far: Pole height and distance?

That is steered by multiple factors: Sometimes the pole height is limited to prevent them being too obtrusive in the landscape. Higher poles are more expensive and more difficult to service, but fewer are needed, but the most expensive part is usually the digging of the trench for the cable and following road restoration work (overhead wiring is practically not an option). So it depend, how wide is the stretch of road to be illuminated.

And I think we all assumed building a completely new installation. But what about cases where something exists? Under which circumstances is it appropriate to start from scratch and in which cases is it reasonable to replace only the luminaires (in fact financial restraints will often dictate this approach as long as the existing poles are not in a state of disrepair), which of course means that the luminaires have to be choosen to match the given pole heights and distances?

It really depend on the state of the cable and poles. Here both use to be practically unusable after about 20 years and that is the period for such major rework, so practically we have new installation anyway. Otherwise it will just become a repair using equivalent spec of what was already installed before, maximum an opportunity for some experimental installations.

That's great but I'd be interested in what actual lanterns you would use.

That's great but I'd be interested in what actual lanterns you would use.

The offerings are changing all the time, so I would study these only when really doing that task seriously, such study is really time consuming (in another words you have to dig through 20..30 pieces of junk before reaching one at least promising type).

Off the top of your head then! 

Here is what I would do:

1) Residential street: GE M250R2, 200w HPS with sag refractor and mounted 15' high.
2) Back road: GE M250R2, 150w PSMH with sag refractor and mounted 12' high.
3) Main road: GE M400R3, 400w PSMH with sag refractor and mounted 2' high with 20 yards between poles
4) Split highway: Same as main road
5) Freeway: Same as main road
6) City center: GE Evolve EASC LED
7) Outdoor carpark: Cooper vanguard III, 350w PSMH
Large area: Cooper HMX Highmast. 750w PSMH
9) Bicycle path: Post top globes, 70w PSMH with coated lamps and 8' off the ground.