The City of San Diego maintains more than 55,000 streetlights in the public right-of-way. In January 2024, the number of open requests for streetlight repairs exceeded 6,300. The Transportation and Performance & Analytics (PandA) departments are working to prioritize the repair backlog and increase productivity. The project goals are to:

• Restructure electrical maintenance crews from Overhead and Underground to North and South to account for “one and done” maintenance repairs.
• Establish a streetlight repair prioritization methodology, factoring in safety, environmental, and operational concerns, to help ease resident concerns.
• Organize and allocate staffing resources to be in sync with new prioritization method and streamline workload planning process.
• Eliminate staff vacancies by addressing recruitment and retention issues.
• Reduce the significant streetlight repair backlog as quickly as possible.
• Accelerate repairs with support from outside vendors.

As of October 2024, the backlog is down to about 5,100 open requests for streetlight repairs.