For the sake of safety, reporting of streetlight outages should be easily done.
I live near the boundary of the service areas of two electric utilities, PSE&G and Atlantic City Electric.
Atlantic City Electric has an excellent system for reporting streetlights not working. On their website they have a map. One zooms down to the vicinity of the outage and every one of their streetlights is shown. Click on the non working streetlight and file a brief report. Within a few days the streetlight will be working once again.
I cannot figure out how to report a nonfunctional streetlight to PSE&G. And I know five of them near me.
How do other utilities handle the reporting of nonfunctional streetlights?
Around here the electric companies have no such responsibility. The lights belong to either the state DOH or the town, it is their responsibility to fix. You would report an outage the same way you report an burned out traffic signal, ether by calling the main number for the DOH county garage or the city's street department, or just calling the police non-emergency number.
Looking at PSE&G's website you can contact them at 800-436-PSEG (7734). Or, if you have an account on www.pseg.com to pay your bill, you can log in and there's a menu option for reporting the street light (you can report up to 10 at one time).
In either case, it helps to have the street light number from the pole or the light if you can read it, as well as address and nearest cross street of the affected light.
Quote from: 02 Park Ave on April 12, 2015, 10:35:10 PM
Atlantic City Electric has an excellent system for reporting streetlights not working. On their website they have a map. One zooms down to the vicinity of the outage and every one of their streetlights is shown. Click on the non working streetlight and file a brief report. Within a few days the streetlight will be working once again.
Our municipally-owned power utility has the same system. The problem is that not all of the lights in the city are their responsibility. Some of them are WisDOT-owned and are maintained by the county. Others, (all intersection-specific street lighting -- lights attached to traffic signal poles) is maintained by the city's public works department. The latter are the ones that fail the most frequently, and take forever to get fixed. Like a typical bureaucracy, one department doesn't talk to the other. :banghead:
It all depends on the agency and what their situation is. Reno (and much of Northern Nevada, if I'm not mistaken) contracts with NV Energy to replace street lights, and residents are directed to report outages to the utility directly. All the entities in the Las Vegas area replace their own street lights.
PSE&G owned street lights, usually in S. Jersey are hard to report, since you need an account to log on. I'd rather use an online form as opposed to the phone. First Energy has a great site to report any power outages, for JCP&L customers.
In Chicago, if it is on a city street, you dial 311 to report it to Streets and Sanitation. Unfortunately, the city is not very quick on fixing it especially in the rougher neighborhoods.
NYC is the same way by using 311 service.
Quote from: jeffandnicole on April 13, 2015, 08:18:35 AM
In either case, it helps to have the street light number from the pole or the light if you can read it, as well as address and nearest cross street of the affected light.
My county always asks for light pole numbers, as well as the other info Jeff noted. Outage reports can be made through the county website, or by phone.
In my county, responsibility is split (I don't know how) between the county and Dominion Power. The pole numbers will help determine whether to pass along your report to the public works department or to the power company.