Making brighter cities

VolkerHighways selects Telensa for Medway Council smart streetlight deployment

Connecting and managing 21,000 LED streetlights provides Medway with improved control, reduces the Council’s carbon footprint and provides support for a smart city platform

Telensa, the world leader in smart street lighting and smart city data applications, today announced that it has been selected by VolkerHighways to deliver wireless streetlight controls and a Central Management System (CMS) for Medway Council. The project will replace 24,000 streetlights with highly efficient Light Emitting Diodes (LED), which will be wirelessly connected and managed using Telensa’s CMS – called PLANet.

Smart street lighting will enable the region to adapt their street lighting network remotely, provide a critical service even during potential lockdowns and save both energy and maintenance costs. The deployment is expected to complete in July 2022.

Cllr Phil Filmer, Medway Council’s portfolio holder for Frontline Services, said: ““I am pleased that thousands of energy efficient lights will be installed across Medway over the next two years. The new management system will allow us to switch the lights on and off and dim them, where necessary. This will give us better control over power consumption and the system will automatically notify us of any faults and reduce the need for regular inspections. This project is just one of many ways that we are seeking to reduce our carbon footprint, improve the environment within Medway and start to lay the foundations for our Smart City ambitions. I look forward to seeing the works progress.”

“We are excited to be working with Medway Council to deliver a flexible and resilient street & public lighting system, that will respond to the community’s future needs,” said Brent Hudson, CEO at Telensa. “The current pandemic, rising energy prices and tightening budgets mean that it is more important than ever to be able to offer deployment-proven solutions to local authorities,”

“Alistair Thompson, managing director for VolkerHighways, said: “It’s great to be part of a project that will deliver real environmental change, with a highly efficient energy saving lighting solution that incorporates smart, future- proofed systems. We have a long-standing relationship with Medway Council, so it’s great to be working on this additional street lighting contract. We will continue to provide a high-quality service, strengthening our existing relationship within the communities we serve.”

Telensa PLANet is an end-to-end intelligent street lighting system, consisting of wireless nodes connecting individual lights, a dedicated wireless network, and a Central Management System. PLANet maximises the benefits of LEDs, pays for itself in reduced energy and maintenance costs, improves quality of service through automatic fault reporting, and turns streetlight poles into hubs for smart city sensors. With more than 2 million lights connected, Telensa PLANet is the world’s most popular connected streetlight system.

About Telensa
Telensa makes wireless smart city applications, helping cities around the world save energy, work smarter and deliver more joined-up services for their citizens. Telensa PLANet is the world’s most deployed smart streetlight solution, with a footprint of two million lights. Urban IQ builds on the compelling business case for smart street lighting to provide cities and utilities with an open, low-cost platform to add multiple sensor applications. Telensa is based in Cambridge in the UK, and manufactures with Sony UK Tech in Pencoed, Wales. It also has regional operations in the USA and Australia.

About VolkerHighways
VolkerHighways is an integrated highways service provider operating across the UK. We work extensively with local authorities and private clients across the country to provide a truly bespoke and comprehensive service. Our teams specialise in highways term maintenance contracts, street lighting and electricals, surfacing and traffic management.
VolkerHighways is part of VolkerWessels UK, a multi-disciplinary construction and civil engineering group with a turnover of c£980 million. VolkerWessels UK employs more than 3,000 staff in five operating companies.