Public & Outdoor – correctly illuminating platforms and circulation routes
Station and stop lighting
Local and long-distance railway stations are places that connect people. In addition to their function as stops, they must enable passengers to rapidly find their way around and feel safe. The correct lighting of platforms, circulation areas and railway station architecture is essential. For this purpose luminaires must meet two main conditions: firstly maximum resistance to external factors such as heat, cold and moisture for extreme resilience in continuous operation. Secondly, luminaires at railway stations and stops need to offer a variety of design options for holistic lighting concepts and also provide good visual comfort. LED luminaires from ERCO meet these criteria. We give you tips on how to select the right luminaires for your project and how economical lighting concepts with high quality can look like.
Lighting railway stations and stops perfectly Download brochure
Exciting project examples
Light Board spotlights illuminate New Street Station in Birmingham from large heights and provide uniform light on the ground. Architecture: AZPML/Atkins/Haskoll. Lighting design: Hoare Lea Lighting, London. Photography: Lukas Palik, Düsseldorf.
Robust Quintessence ground-recessed luminaires for outdoor use are discreetly installed in the cantilevered roof of the Sydney Light Rail to illuminate the platform without glare. Architecture: Grimshaw. Photography: Jackie Chan, Sydney.
Sufficient horizontal general lighting is important to create a feeling of safety and security. ERCO Compact surface-mounted luminaires for outdoor use provide sufficient brightness for passers-by and high visual comfort for passengers and incoming trains. Photography: Jackie Chan, Sydney.
Trains entering the station must not be inhibited by glare. Quintessence recessed luminaires for outdoor applications offer excellent visual comfort and generate pleasant general lighting with uniform distribution of brightness. Architecture: Grimshaw. Photography: Jackie Chan, Sydney.
Illuminated ceilings lend the architecture an open character. Square ERCO Tesis ground-recessed luminaires provide impressive ceiling washlighting at Blackburn bus station. Architecture: Capita Symonds—Altaf Master. Lighting design: Capita Symonds. Photography: Lukas Palik, Düsseldorf.
If demands for the outside apply inside: Holmestrand Station in Vestfold relies on hard-wearing outdoor lighting tools in the form of ERCO Quintessence recessed luminaires. Architecture: Gottlieb Paludan Architects. Lighting design: Ramboll and NLI. Photography: Johan Elm, Stockholm.
Lighting railway stations perfectly: what you should know
Rely on robust outdoor luminaires for railway stations
Stations are often in operation 24/7 and exposed to a variety of external factors, for example temperature, adverse weather and dust. This calls for lighting that can withstand anything: ERCO offers especially robust outdoor luminaires that withstand external influences such as cold, heat and moisture. No-rinse coated projector housings ensure a low accumulation of dirt. High IP68 protection, as with ground-recessed luminaires, ensures that even prolonged exposure to moisture is unable to affect ERCO luminaires.
Guide passengers with vertical lighting
Use light to provide good orientation in railway station concourses. Uniformly illuminated walls support orientation and create the best possible impression of brightness in an extremely efficient way, even in very large rooms. Uniform wallwashing means that dark corners are avoided and a wide effect of space in the room is created. This makes the entire area usable and allows travelers to spread out more freely. Aid orientation in large halls and guide visitors reliably from A to B.
Projectors, recessed and surface-mounted luminaires and ground-recessed luminaires with wallwash distribution are suitable for excellently illuminating walls. Large-format pictures, banners and advertising spaces on walls also attract more attention through wallwashing.
Create safety with sufficient general lighting
Make circulation areas safe and emphasize routes with glare-controlled general lighting. In such cases high visual comfort is particularly important. Small irregularities in the ground can only be clearly seen if people are not dazzled by glare and if the general lighting is uniform. Similarly, train drivers must not be subjected to glare when entering the station concourse so that they can clearly see the platform and signage. Wide oval distributions are ideal for large luminaire spacing. Depending on the mounting situation, downlights available as recessed and surface-mounted versions as well as floodlights are suitable for pleasant horizontal general lighting. In particular, the combination of wallwashing and horizontal general lighting enables you to create attractive locations with a high level of visual comfort in which people feel comfortable, find their way around quickly and move safely.
Set highlights with accent lighting
Large station concourses and railway track systems are not always easy for passengers to comprehend. Targeted accent lighting can help to create perceptual hierarchies and points of orientation to mark stopping points or highlight signs and information. ERCO projectors with narrow distribution are the ideal luminaires for this. Projectors achieve high illuminance even at low wattages. This allows you to create concise focal points that can also be seen from a distance, and specifically direct the attention of passengers and passers-by.
Ceiling washlighting for a spacious appearance
Uniformly illuminating the ceiling is ideal to ensure that the concourses of railway stations do not appear cavernous, but bright and spacious in the evening. On the one hand, ceiling washlighting can highlight architectural elements. On the other, an illuminated ceiling supports the impression of brightness. If the ceiling has a special aesthetic value due to its construction or decoration, ceiling washlighting is particularly recommended. Another major advantage of ceiling illumination is that only the diffusely reflected light falls towards the angle of view of travelers, thus creating a high level of visual comfort. Special ceiling washlights from ERCO with narrow or wide distribution enable very uniform illumination of ceilings, even with wide luminaire spacing.
Correctly illuminating railway stations
Station concourse
Large railway station concourses with many tracks, waiting areas and outgoing circulation zones often have a complex spatial structure. The right lighting with sufficient brightness helps travelers to quickly find their way around and also provides a feeling of safety and security. General lighting, e.g. with downlights or ceiling washlights, creates a pleasant ambient brightness. With vertical lighting, the structure of the room can also be more efficiently comprehended. Accent lighting helps to identify individual elements and enables signs to be more quickly recognized.
Platforms
Railway platforms and stops should be sufficiently brightly illuminated to ensure the safety of passenger and train traffic. Downlights mounted on a cantilever roof often provide good illumination of the waiting area. Uplights and ceiling washlights can also illuminate the cantilever roof to create a prestigious impression and increase brightness.
Staircases and circulation routes
Downlights with oval distribution are particularly suitable for the efficient illumination of circulation zones, underpasses, passages and escalators. Linear lighting efficiently creates a band of light on the ground, thus supporting the routing and guidance of pedestrians. Wallwashing is ideal for vertical surfaces especially at the end of a path or route, enabling travelers to orient themselves more easily.
Example lighting and arrangement of luminaires
Oval flood downlights
Downlights with oval distribution are suitable for linear general lighting to illuminate zones and routes. This creates bands of light on the ground which facilitate route guidance and orientation.
With linear arrangements, the luminaire spacing (d) between two downlights may be the height (h) of the luminaire above the working plane as a rough guide for uniform lighting.
Arrangement: d = h
Application area: Circulation routes in high-roofed rooms, e.g. railway stations, stops and underpasses.
Tip:
In order to illuminate a platform with a width of 2.5m from a height of 5m with 100lx, downlights with oval flood (20° x 60°) distribution and a 24W LED module are required at a distance of 6m.
Wallwashing
Wallwashing creates very uniform distribution of light on the surface of a wall. The wall gains a soft character and makes the room appear wide. Lens wallwashers as ground-recessed luminaires are suitable because they can be integrated discreetly into the architecture. Vehicles can drive over them and pedestrians can walk on them.
The wall distance (a) of lens wallwashers should be about one third of the room height (h).
Arrangement: a = 1/3 x h
For good linear uniformity the luminaire distance (d) of lens wallwashers can be up to 1.3 times the distance to the wall (a).
Arrangement: d ≤ 1.3 x a
Tip:
To uniformly illuminate a 10m-high station concourse with a distance of 3m to the wall and luminaire spacing of 3.5m with 50lx, we recommend wallwashers with 24 watt LED module.
Ceiling washlighting
The uniform illumination of ceilings makes rooms look high. Ceiling washlights are available with narrow or wide light distribution. Narrow distribution enables uniform ceiling washlighting in the background, whilst the wide distribution uniformly illuminates ceilings near the walls. The mounting distance (a) from the ceiling determines the luminaire spacing (d) and should be based on design criteria. Distance (a) should be at least 0.8 meters.
Arrangement: a > 0.8m
The luminaire spacing (d) with wide light distribution may be up to 4 times the distance from the ceiling (a).
Arrangement: d = 4 x a
The luminaire spacing (d) with narrow light distribution may be up to 3 times the distance from the ceiling (a).
Arrangement: d = 3 x a
Tip:
In order to uniformly illuminate the ceiling of a 4m high and 5m wide underpass with 50lx, you require ceiling washlights with wide distribution, a distance from the ceiling of 1.5m, luminaire spacing of 6m and with a 24W LED module. In the case of underpasses with a larger width, a row of ceiling washlights on both wall sides is recommended.
24/7 continuous operation
It must be ensured that luminaires can be operated reliably and without failures in continuous operation. ERCO outdoor luminaires require very little maintenance. The LEDs we use have an average failure rate of less than 0.1% over 50,000 operating hours. With 100 downlights each with 10 LEDs, only 1 LED would thus be affected in continuous operation over 6 years—this low value is far below the market average. You can thus rely on economical operation.
Technical features
For all wind and weather
ERCO outdoor luminaires are specifically developed to meet the requirements of urban environments. The housing is made of corrosion-resistant material and is therefore especially weatherproof. The no-rinse surface treatment ensures a reduced dirt deposit. All ERCO outdoor luminaires have at least an IP65 protection rating, making them dustproof and protected against jets of water from all directions.
As tough as they come
ERCO outdoor luminaires give the cold shoulder to external influences of a mechanical nature: robust ground-recessed luminaires remain intact even with daily bouts of heavy walkover traffic. Bollard luminaires that comply with IK10 impact resistance effortlessly withstand rough treatment from outside. For you this means less repair costs and downtime in daily operation.
Extreme durability
The LEDs in our luminaires have extremely long service lives. This means that over an operating time of 50,000 hours, at least 90% of LEDs still maintain 90% of their original luminous flux (L90/B10). Even after almost 6 years of continuous operation the maintenance value of the illuminance is still not fallen below. Lens systems free of spill light control the light so precisely and efficiently that it is guided precisely onto the target surface—even from large distances.
Up to 10 light distributions
Lighting concepts are as diverse as the architecture itself. At ERCO, find the right LED outdoor luminaires with up to ten different light distributions – from accent lighting to wallwashing.
From small to large
At ERCO you'll find the right size and lumen package for every lighting task. Projectors, floodlights, wallwashers and downlights are available with an LED module power consumption of 2W to 96W. Ideal for lighting tasks ranging from smaller railway platforms up to monumental station concourses.
