Enhancing Nighttime Pedestrians’ Perceived Safety: A Pilot Study of the Simulated Dynamic Tracking Road Lighting Approach

Pedestrians walking alone at night experience heightened fear, particularly women. Adequate lighting enhances perceived safety, yet conventional all-night static lighting in low-traffic residential areas generates substantial energy waste and light pollution, challenging sustainable urban lighting. This study examined a manually simulated dynamic tracking lighting condition and its impact on pedestrians’ perceived safety in real-world residential settings. We recruited 20 participants (10 females, 10 males) from a residential area and tested the effect of a single simulated dynamic tracking light. We examined the assessment of simulated dynamic tracking lighting in terms of reassurance compared with conventional static lighting. Additionally, we designed another similar dynamic tracking lighting condition with a smaller light spot to test whether the size of the light spot has an impact on perceived safety. Friedman ANOVA with post hoc Wilcoxon signed-rank tests showed that both dynamic tracking modes significantly outperformed static lighting across all three outcomes (all p < 0.001), while the Tracking mode yielded significantly higher visual comfort than the narrower Spot mode (p_adj = 0.014). Exploratory gender analyses suggested that females experienced greater baseline fear under Normal lighting and derived larger fear reductions from dynamic tracking, though formal inferential gender comparisons were limited by small subgroup sizes. The results further indicated that the configuration of light spots may exert measurable effects on visual comfort, warranting further investigation. These findings indicate that on-demand dynamic tracking lighting can enhance pedestrian reassurance while potentially reducing unnecessary nighttime illumination, offering a sustainable alternative to full-time static lighting in low-traffic residential environments.