The law valid in Lombardy (since 2000, with amendments from 2004) and in five other provinces of Italy (see below; the provinces comprise over 17 million inhabitants) has the following demands for all new outdoor lighting installations and reconstructions of the existing lighting systems, whenever the old luminaries are changed to new ones:
1- each luminaire is to have zero specific luminous intensity horizontally and upwards (emit no more than 0.49 cd/klm over 90°) (there are exemptions, but not applicable for streetlighting)
2- level of luminance and illuminance shall be no more than the minimum defined by European technical norms (UNI10439, DIN5044, EN 13201, etc..)
3- Efficient lamps (over 89 lm/W) are mandatory
4- New lighting installations shall be highly optimised (e.g., for new streetlighting, ratio distance of two poles / pole height shall be over 3.7; for non-streetlight installation, the Utilisation Factor is to be optimised).
5- Lighting flux reducer systems are mandatory - there is to be a possibility to reduce the full luminous flux by at least 30 per cent.
1 and 3 are product-related requirements, 3, 4 and 5 are system-related ones. 5 can be fulfilled at the product level, using a programmable ballast.
The law has an explicit requirement to manufacturers, importers and sellers (non-compliant products are not allowed to enter the market in these provinces). The text from Lombardy reads:
“8. Le case costruttrici, importatrici o fornitrici devono certificare, tra le caratteristiche tecniche degli apparecchi commercializzati, la rispondenza del singolo prodotto alla presente legge ed alle norme tecniche di attuazione, corredandolo della dichiarazione di conformità rilasciata da riconosciuti istituti nazionali e internazionali operanti nel settore della sicurezza e qualità dei prodotti e delle aziende, nonché delle raccomandazioni circa la corretta installazione ed uso”
It can be translated as:
“Manufacturers, importers and sellers have to certify, together with other technical parameters of the offered products, the compliance of the product with the present law and its implementing standards; this is to be done by including a declaration of conformity issued by national or international institutes working at the field of safety and product quality, and instructions for correct installation and use.”
Further requirement concerns just producers (English translation only, from legislation valid in Lombardy):
“the producers are obliged (always) to furnish, for each product installed in Lombardy, photometric data on paper and on file eulumdat CERTIFIED and SIGNED by the laboratory manager that made the measurements.”
(This is THE WAY to demonstrate the conformity of the luminaires to the law.)
The current six regions with almost the same legislation are (common designations of laws included):
Lombardia LR17/00 and LR38/04, Marche LR10/02, Emilia Romagna LR19/03, Abruzzo LR12/05, Puglia LR15/05, Umbria LR20/05 (a hypertext access to them is available from http://www.cielobuio.org/article.php?sid=905).
An illustrated manual for anybody concerned with the original legislation of Lombardy (before the 2004 amendment, demanding e.g. immediate reconstruction of all lighting affecting directly any protected natural areas) is available at http://cielobuio.org/lombardy.php – the first part of the manual being (there's a M$word version too) http://www.cielobuio.org/cielobuio/lrl17/visualreg17en.htm and the complete manual in a pdf version (7 MB) http://amper.ped.muni.cz/light/VISUALreg17eng.pdf (the English of the translation is far from perfect, but understandable for people working in streetlighting).
no state or municipal funds shall be used to install or replace a permanent outdoor luminaire for roadway lighting unless....
(6) the Commissioner of Transportation determines that the purpose of the lighting installation or replacement of lights on state highways cannot be achieved by reducing the speed limit in the area to be lighted or by installing reflectorized roadway markers, lines, warnings, informational signs or other means of passive or reflective lighting
....