For the illumination of parking spaces or garages it’s essential to create very good visibility conditions for its users such as all kinds of drivers or pedestrians of all ages. The overall importance here is safety – if then, by using different energy-saving systems, the installation additionally is going to be amortizing itself in no time, we clearly have a win-win situation.

Benefits of lighting parking lots or garages in the right way

When listing the benefits of correct lighting of a parking lot, we can highlight the following:

• It facilitates the orientation of drivers and pedestrians
• increasing security, helping to identify the most dangerous points
• It helps to quickly identify pedestrians, vehicles, signs or obstacles

To begin with

First things first: when it comes to lighting of public buildings or areas, you should make yourself familiar with all the legal requirements and building regulations that are involved. Knowing then all the requirements the installation has to meet, you next focus on the exact type of construction you want to illuminate.

In Spain, it is common for most public parking lots to be subterranean, with more than one floor.

This type of “indoor parking lots” is usually a major source of dust particles and polluting gases produced by the cars and motorcycles using them. This is why the luminaires being installed have to be quite resistant to external impacts; so a high IP certification is extremely useful here.

Distribution of the luminaires

The correct distribution and positioning of lights in a parking lot is a tremendously important aspect as it can directly influence the comfort and safety of its users.

Therefore it is best avoiding the placement of luminaires outside on roofs or at extreme heights, because of the glare which can cause severe discomfort / inconvenience.

This is why we’d recommend you to place the luminaires on walls at fair heights for achieving a good light spread. Furthermore, it is equally important to put all the other kinds of lights into place (e.g. emergency / signaling lights) – always according to the respecting regulations.

Efficiency of the installation

The main purpose of illumination obviously is visibility. While in subterranean areas there is usually very few daylight, there always has to be artificial lighting.

With a light installation continuously running its expenses could likely be vertiginous – even more nowadays.

This is why many underground carparks are using a variety of control systems such as timers or scheduled switch-on duration, presence sensors or even daylight sensors. Thanks to all this saving energy and costs is made possible.

Lighting in case of an emergency

In case of any emergency or power outage it has to be made sure that evacuation of any kind always is possible.

For this it’s important to also mount a special type of luminaires in enclosed parking spaces of more than 100 meters. The luminaires have to be working independently and without connection to the grid (like battery systems or by emergency power generators) to ensure a save evacuation. Furthermore, they have to be put up at fair heights (at approximately 2m from the ground) so that they are visible from any perspective.

Color temperature

When we talk about color temperature we always talk about Kelvin (K).

This is the temperature unit in which it is measured. Thereby, we talk about a range of color temperatures from amber (1800K, with a warm glow) to 6500K (daylight, very bright). Within garages, luminaires with a color temperature between 5000K and 6000K should be installed, because of its crisp, white light a proper visibility is guaranteed.

As a manufacturer of lighting systems with quite some years of experience we are always there to help you with whatever project you’re taking on. We’d be happy to share our expertise with you to help you get the best results possible.