Mobile phones find more and more uses everyday, and in the current worldwide climate and economic conditions it's good to see such useful solutions, only I didn't really expect them to find such early adoption. However, certain small German communities have already adopted the approach, hopefully paving the way for the rest of us to follow. From the article:

A trend is spreading through small towns across Germany. Tight budgets have forced hard decisions, including turning the lights out at night. No one is on the streets at night anyway, so why pay for the electricity to run the street lights? But residents have revolted. They fear an uptick in crime, or simply for their safety while stumbling through the dark streets to walk the dog or return from a late night out. Proving necessity is the mother of invention, a handful of clever solutions are being implemented; some with interesting consequences.

The solution seems to have started in the small town of Morgenröthe-Rautenkranz in the Erzegebirge. Over one and a half years ago, the 900 citizens of Morgenröthe-Rautenkranz were plunged into darkness each night, but given the option to turn the lights on by mobile telephone. Older citizens were concerned about their ability to master this new technology, but practice makes perfect. The first two weeks of the program, the lights remained on almost all night long as residents remained awake late for an opportunity to test the new system! But now the lights stay off except when needed. The town saves 4000 euros ($5300) per year. According to the Berliner Morgenpost daily newspaper, Morgenröthe-Rautenkranz is the inspiration for 4300 person community of Groß Pankow, the most recent community to consider on-call streetlight.

You simply dial a number to turn the lights on in your street... Nice and simple. Things start getting a bit more complicated when billing issues arise, but I'm only discussing the idea.

A more natural (for me, anyway) solution would be to provide the same service over a different medium, in order to automatize the process. A smart proximity marketing system can be used where registered users -- these would be the residents of a certain area, or people regularly walking the streets -- would have their presence automatically detected -- through Bluetooth, for example -- and the lights would automatically come on for them, when approaching the street. Of course, non-registered users can still use the system through other mediums, such as the phone mentioned above, but the system could also be set up so that it always keeps the lights on wherever there are discoverable devices.

This way, the resident of the area doesn't really need to do anything but have Bluetooth turned on -- and discoverable. That's it! Then lights automatically turn on for you just before you walk past, and turn off once you have moved outside the area. If done right, the system would automatically also know which way you are walking (besides, you DO walk roughly the same way home every night -- especially so in smaller communities) so that it can turn the lights on for you even further ahead, for more security.

An obvious problem is what to do if you don't have Bluetooth on your mobile phone, or if your battery runs out, but that's why a complete such system would also come with manual push buttons on lamps, so that everyone has access to it.