A system and methods to provide imaging service using outdoor lighting networks. The system uses outdoor lighting networks to manage/control video/image sensors connected to the network, e.g. hosted at lighting units, and coordinates the capture of useful video/image data associated with events. The system also provides an information search platform for users to retrieve only the relevant video/image data associated with events of interest. Furthermore, the system controls when and how to retrieve video/image data at lighting units across the whole network according to user requests, the priority of the events, and available bandwidth.