Light & Engineering Vol. 24, No. 1, pp. 51-57, 2016 Svetotekhnika No. 6, 2015, pp. 21-26 NEW APPROACH IN THE DETERMINATION OF QUALITATIVE CHARACTERISTICS OF OUTDOOR ILLUMINATION INSTALLATIONS Georgy V. Boos and Andrei A. Grigoryev The Moscow Power Institute, National Research University, Moscow E-mail: aag.2010@yandex.ru ABSTRACT An analysis of methods for determining necessary luminance levels in lighting installations of external illumination is carried out. <...> A new method of calculating the visibility of traffic objects based on a statistical approach to the description of detection and identification of the objects by the human visual system is proposed. <...> Keywords: necessary luminance levels, threshold characteristics of visual system, theory of statistical solutions, optimum image detector At present, assessment of lighting installations (LI) of outdoor illumination (OI) is based on their provision of necessary luminance (illuminance) levels regulated in Russia by the СП 52.13330.2011 Building Regulation [1]. <...> The primary goal of any LI is the creation of such illumination conditions, which make it possible for a person to solve visual tasks of various complexities to a set level of reliability. <...> The minimum illumination levels derived from a mass of experimental data on the thresholds and performance characteristics of human visual system, obtained from observations of everyday objects. <...> With the evolution of, the number of such everyday objects constantly changes; in addition, their photometric characteristics change with time and strongly depend on the season, weather conditions, on the method of forming LIs themselves, etc. <...> In this way, specific values of luminance or 51 illuminance levels for LI design can only be determined approximately. <...> Experimental methods of determining minimum luminance or illuminance levels require time and material costs, due to the multiple parameters comprising the problem, the solution of which depends not only on photometric object characteristics but also on road surfaces, weather conditions, etc. characteristics, which are generally changeable across field of sight. <...> Modern software packages for LI calculation (for example, Lightskape, Dialux, Light-in-Night, etc.) allow calculating luminance or illuminance levels to a high degree of accuracy, taking into consideration not only the photometric characteristics of the illumination devices but also the characteristics of illuminated objects <...>