Chicago's Infrastructure Trust is considering a plan to upgrade the city's street, alley and other outdoor lights with LED technology.

The trust, which saw a shake up in its leadership in July, released a "Request for Information" Thursday for firms interested in working to bring the energy-saving techology to the city's approximately 348,500 outdoor lights, reports the Chicago Sun-Times. Companies have until November 16 to respond to the trust's request for the project, which would be a multi-year effort starting in 2016.

Passed in April 2012, the Infrastructure Trust is a public-private partnership through which private investors fund public infrastructure. 

City Treasurer Kurt Summers leads the trust.

"We have an opportunity to make sure we have the best, most efficient technology, but it's also a public safety issue. We want to make sure our streets and our neighborhoods are lit. The more light there is in neighborhoods and the fewer lights there are down or malfunctioning, the less likely it is [bad] things will happen in the dark," he told the newspaper. 

"Right now, we don't know when lights are down. They have to be manually tested, manually reported and figured out. Most of the grid is not energy-efficient. There is a tremendous opportunity for energy savings. There's a great opportunity to have smarter technology, which means not only would we know when a light is down, but what it needs to be replaced and how long" it will take to fix a light.