The Department of Rural Roads explains the policy to turn off road lights after 10:00 PM only on routes with low traffic volume. It confirms that curves and risk points will remain lit all night and reveals issues with equipment theft. The department plans to switch to LED bulbs to reduce electricity costs by 40%. Theft of equipment is a significant problem.
Mr. Phichit Hunsiri, Director-General of the Department of Rural Roads (DRR). He revealed that energy-saving policies are a primary government directive that all agencies must implement. The DRR has started by reducing internal energy use, such as turning off air conditioners and electrical devices when not in use.
Meanwhile, regarding public-related matters, especially street lighting systems, there is a clear measure requiring all road lights to remain on at least until 10:00 PM. After that, usage will be reduced only in sections with traffic volumes below 60 vehicles per hour, considered very low traffic periods.
It was strictly emphasized that risk areas, such as curves, intersections, communities, or places prone to danger, must have lights on throughout the night without exceptions to ensure road user safety. The DRR also uses hourly traffic data to analyze and manage lighting; for example, in some southern areas where roads are used again around 3:00 AM, lights will be turned back on to align with local traffic patterns.
In response to public feedback, especially misunderstandings that lights had been off for a long time, many outages are actually due to theft of electrical cables and equipment, notably copper wires stolen repeatedly at the same spots despite repairs. Recently, transformer thefts have also been reported, with each transformer valued at about 170,000 baht. The DRR has tried to address this with engineering measures like concreting to protect equipment and regular nighttime patrols. While not fully preventable, these efforts have reduced damage to some extent.
Additionally, the DRR plans to gradually replace street lighting with high-efficiency, energy-saving LED bulbs, starting with older equipment nearing end-of-life. Currently, there are about 700,000–800,000 lights nationwide. Replacing all at once would require a huge budget. The transition is expected to begin in fiscal years 2027–2028, funded by the DRR budget alongside support from the Energy Fund, which is preliminarily allocating around 200 million baht to accelerate the shift to energy-efficient systems.
However, the DRR’s entire energy-saving approach is based on maximizing savings without compromising public safety. Street lighting management will be flexible according to actual usage, not a complete shutdown, helping reduce energy expenses by up to 40% while continuously ensuring road safety nationwide.
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