The most visible public areas are the hallways, elevator lobbies, restrooms, outdoor lighting and the parking areas. In these places, if their lights are not managed then the only alternative is to leave them on all the time, this works against the effort to save on energy. In reality of course, these places can have different periods of activity, there is a period of high activity with lots of people and traffic, and also a period of low activity with few to no people about. If the lights are unmanaged, then there is no quality of service that is in effect. This article seeks to suggest some ways in which a quality of service can be put into place that is both reasonable and effective, which also helps to save energy at the same time.

With the addition of a lighting control system, the following points can be achieved:

1. The time in public areas would be divided as peak, off-peak and no service periods.
   1. During peak periods, in order to get the best quality service, the lights should remain at their optimal operating condition, at this time, the local wall switches would not be allowed to operate. As such, there is no need to worry that the lights would be inadvertently turned off and thus affecting the qualify of service.
   2. During off-peak periods, saving energy is the most important consideration, at this time, there are few people about, and the lights can all be turned off or only some turned off, with the ability for local control, this way some form of energy saving can be attained. With some lights being turned off, only a minimal amount of lighting is retained to maintain some form of illumination. Local control is attained using wall switches or sensors that will automatically turn on the lights in the given space.
   3. During periods of no service, as when offices and business are closed, all the public lighting are off except for the signage and basic lights.
2. The lighting can be varied depending on the time and place. The changes should be easy and safe to do.
   • Offices and commercial spaces can be divided into different time segments based on activity. Work days and holidays, peak and off-peak periods all have differing levels of activity. Even in any given building, different rooms or spaces with different purposes would have different time segments as well. At different times, different lights would need to be lit or dimmed, all of which can be achieved automatically with a scheduled timer control. Such a schedule should be easy to modify to accommodate temporary and extemporaneous changes, ideally it should be possible to do online and through a web interface. The administrator then won’t even need to go to the equipment room, thus the entire process is not only convenient but also safe.
3. During a fire alarm, the lighting mode should automatically change to emergency lighting.
   • During an emergency, such as when a fire alarm occurs, then the lights should become emergency lights and all turn on, regardless of what time or mode it was previously operating at, this way they can be put into its best possible use.
4. The need for centralization: convenience
   • From the point of view of the building management or safety considerations, it should be possible to oversee the lighting for all areas of the building and be able to make changes remotely depending on the situation. This can be achieved by using a bunch of aggregated IS45 digital switches or by using a touch panel.
5. With multiple circuit control, there is no need for the lights to remain on all day long.
   • In reality, in any given space, there are many lighting circuits and rarely is there only one circuit for all the lights. This is because other than the basic lighting, there are also the non-essential lighting used for decorative purposes only to provide the atmosphere. During off-peak periods, the basic lighting can be turned off to save on energy.
6. The local wall switches behave differently during different time periods.
   • During peak periods, the lights would be forced to remain on from the control center, and de-authorize the local wall switches from operating. But during off-peak periods or for certain types of rooms, the local user should be allowed to freely operate the wall switches. Classic wall switches are most often chosen for use as the local switch, since they are durable and reliable; at the same time, the user is already familiar with them and their use is intuitive.
   • Classic switches can be classified by their use into one of three types:
     1. Toggle type: Pressing them changes them from one position to another and vice versa. Such as a private office, the user can freely control the lights.
     2. Push button type: Press once to turn on the lights, the lights will then turn off automatically after a certain delay.
     3. Multiple access switch: Such as those used in a long hallway or a large hall; it is recommended that push button switches be used, they are connected together using two wires, which will allow control of the lights from multiple locations; i.e. turn the lights on from one spot, and conveniently turn the lights off from a different spot.
7. Areas adjacent to natural light, during the day, the lights in these areas would automatically be turned off during the day.
8. Outdoor areas such as parking lots, park lights, building wall flood lights and billboards; at different times of the day, different lights would be turned off. The turn on times would vary with the seasons.