Travel on one of Brighton’s new buses and you could experience a unique innovation in air pollution control.
The seaside city has high rates of walking and one of the lowest rates of car ownership in the UK. Bus journeys per resident are second only to London and more than twice those in Merseyside and Manchester.
But this has led to air pollution problems where almost all of Brighton’s buses routes (4,000 buses per day) converge in the crowded city centre. To help, 30 new buses are now using geofencing to automatically switch from diesel to battery power when they enter the city’s low emission zone.
Other trials with geofencing in Bristol and San Francisco have switched buses to battery power to reduce air pollution near schools and hospitals.
Brighton is no stranger to bus innovation. More than 100 years ago, it boasted the UK’s largest fleet of electrobuses.
Unlike today’s electric buses, such as the fleet in London, the early Brighton buses did not have time out of service for charging. Instead, after about 40 miles, the buses called briefly at a battery swap station.
Despite their reliability and popularity with passengers a lack of spare parts led to their retirement around 1916.
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