Zhang Jun/Shanghai Daily news

Shanghai is planning to install remote-control devise on streetlamps so that they can be turned on during the day in the event of rain or snow, city officials said yesterday.
The city has already installed the devices on about 20 percent of the 100,000 streetlamps in downtown Shanghai.
"We received many complaints saying that when the city is hit by rainstorms and becomes very dark during the day time, there is not enough illumination," Wang Xiaoming, deputy director of the city's streetlamp management office, said yesterday.
Using the new remote-control devise, streetlamp maintenance workers can manually turn on a number of streetlamps through a remote control button within a streetlamp control case along the street.
Each case controls 30 to 50 streetlamps.
"We will gradually expand the application of such remote control streetlamp facilities because they are more flexible than pre-set means," Wang said.
Unlike table lamps, most streetlamps cannot be individually controlled and their working hours are pre-set.
While the lights are set to come on and shut off at different times during the year depending on the length of daylight hours, most can't be turned on or off to account for fog, clouds or rain.
For instance, in the summer streetlamps are turned on at around 7pm and turned off at around 4am, compared to the winter when they go on at 5pm and are shut off at 6am.
"When Typhoon Matsa hit the city last summer, the visibility became very low in the early afternoon, making it difficult to drive," said Wang Guofu, a local cab driver.
Some members of the Shanghai Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference suggested the city install light-control devise on streetlamps.
"It would be more reasonable to have streetlamps controlled by the level of visible light than by the time of day," said CPPCC member Deng Weizhi.
But Wang said it would be impossible to use light-sensitive devices to control streetlamps in most parts of the city.
"There are too many trees and neon lights around the city's downtown, which will partially paralyze the light-sensitive devices," he said.