Columbus, Ohio: phased LED conversion across a 58,000-light system

The situation

The City of Columbus, Ohio maintains a street lighting system of about 58,000 fixtures through its Division of Power. Much of that network still ran on high-pressure sodium lighting: fixed output, no remote monitoring, and a fault found only when a resident called it in or a crew happened to drive past it after dark.

The City approved a first construction contract with Complete General Construction Company and Dimonoff in 2021, starting in the Linden neighbourhood with an initial investment of $892,250.

What was deployed

Each converted fixture received a networked LED lighting node reporting into the Dimonoff | SCMS platform. Across the phases completed so far, including the initial Linden rollout, a Southside neighbourhood phase and the Mayor’s Clean and Safe Corridors initiative covering the Parsons, Livingston and Sullivant Avenues area, 6,160 high-pressure sodium fixtures have been converted and connected. The platform gives the Division of Power’s office real-time, per-fixture control: on/off, dimming, and brightness adjustment, without a truck roll to the pole. When a fixture fails, the platform notifies the maintenance division automatically, rather than waiting on a resident report.

Columbus continues the conversion in phases against the City’s full 58,000-light inventory.

Why it matters for your network

Columbus is the phased-rollout case: a city with a large, ageing HPS inventory that chose to convert in stages against a documented investment, rather than wait for a single citywide contract. The pattern is one many mid-size and large cities recognize, funding one geographic phase, proving the platform and the maintenance workflow, then extending it. If your network is too large to convert in one project, this is the precedent for sequencing it without losing central visibility over the fixtures already converted.