Brighton and Hove Buses is steering a course towards cleaner air in one of the most polluted streets in the area
Two research projects in the Brighton and Hove area will potentially help us all to breathe more easily.
One project involved Brighton and Hove Buses and scientists at the Shoreham premises of the global engineering consultancy Ricardo. The other will be led by academics at Brighton University, working with colleagues from Oxford University, Brunel University and University College London. The second project is also supported by Ricardo.
Engineers from the Shoreham firm fitted specialist measuring equipment to three types of bus, including one with a hybrid engine.
The tests were carried out along the route of the number 7, which includes North Street, one of the most polluted streets in Brighton.
Buses account for almost four in ten journeys up and down North Street, which has high-sided buildings. As with London Road and Western Road, these help trap exhaust fumes.
Lorries make more than one in 20 journeys up and down North Street. Taxis and vans – predominantly diesel-fuelled – make up almost all of the rest.
The research found that the stop-start nature of journeys up North Street were a key contributor to the poor air quality. It concluded that smoother traffic flow would significantly reduce bus emissions.
The findings were presented to Brighton and Hove City Council two months ago as it looks at ways to improve air quality with increasing urgency.
Anything that smoothes the flow of traffic is likely to cut fuel consumption as well as emissions. This would help with the bus company’s operating costs – fuel is a big overhead. A different financial consideration is also a driver for council members and officials.
“It is vital that any action taken to address the problem is based on evidence”
Brighton and Hove is part of one of 16 air quality zones in Britain that have failed to meet the standard set by the European Union. There are 43 zones in total.
As a result of the poor air quality in Brighton and the other polluted areas, the EU is taking Britain to court. The case is expected to cost up to £300 million in fines for each year of sub-standard air quality.
The government has been contemplating whether councils, including Brighton and Hove, should foot the bill.
The prospect of a huge fine was one of the factors that led the council to agree to set up a low emission zone earlier this year. It is due to come into force next January. It will cover North Street and Western Road – the corridor used by 19 out of every 20 buses in Brighton and Hove.
The council and Brighton and Hove Buses won £700,000 from the government last year to retrofit 50 vehicles to reduce the amount of air pollution that they produce. Some hope that more funding can be won to help cabbies so that they can also upgrade their engines.
Martin Harris, managing director of Brighton and Hove Buses, said: “The excellent technical research undertaken by Ricardo has confirmed that we are travelling in the right direction with investment in our fleet and in working with partners to reduce delays and stop-start traffic flows for buses that adversely impact on the environmental performance of our fleet.
“The research has also informed us of a number of opportunities to further improve our environmental performance. This will flow through to improved emissions which will benefit everybody through cleaner air.”
Councillor Ian Davey, deputy leader of the council and lead member on transport, said: “Brighton and Hove, like many cities, suffers severe air quality problems in our densely populated and intensely used urban centres. We know that the main contributor is vehicle emissions yet there is no easy solution. It is vital that any action taken to address the problem is based on evidence.”
Meanwhile, Brighton University has won £1 million to lead a project to develop ultra-efficient engines and fuels. The aim is to enable vehicles to travel further on less fuel – with near-zero emissions.
Brighton is developing, among other things, a reputation as a centre of excellence for environmental technology, with businesses profiting from plotting a more sustainable route.
There is an easy solution introduce Trams, Why should Brighton and Hove Bus Company be allowed to get away with running vehicles that do not conform.Perhaps they should pay the Fine as it is their vehicles that are causing most of the Pollution.Why is it that everywhere you go in Europe Trams are being introduced and yet a City like Brighton and Hove does not feel theneed for their introduction?
Trams are fine, but very costly and dependant upon large government grants, which are seldom given. Their construction takes a long time and is very disruptive.
I think we should look to the experimental electric bus running in Milton Keynes and a number of similar continental systems. These would provide a modern version of the trolley bus, able to serve the whole city requiring a fraction of the tram infrastructure, hence less cost and disruption.
HJarrs as I said before how is it that they can be built elsewhere and not in Brighton and Hove.The Council seem to be able to get funding for Bus and Cycle lanes and are prepared to put £36m on the line for the i360 surely this is a guaranteed money earner.Why aren’t The Bus Company pressured into contributing they are majking huge profits out of the City
Very few tram routes are being built in the UK. You would have to ask the government why they don’t provide sufficient funding for trams but find a small amount of funding for cycle routes. Lets not forget that cycle routes have had under £5 million of funding from government and have cost below £10 million in total in the last 3 years (much of the headline costs go to improving bus lanes and pavements) the Edinburgh tram has cost over £100 million per mile, the Nottingham tram route over £30 million per mile and it would take 10 years at least from deciding to go for it till the first tram running. As for the i360, the business case was sufficiently strong to justify the government supporting a loan on a commercial basis.
I like trams, was only travelling on one last week, I just think that the initial costs make it difficult to see happening, particularly when we could have a fleet of wireless trolley buses serving the whole city with much less disruption and for a lower cost.
Can you imagine how long it would take them to re-introduce trams to the city?? It’s taking them about 18 months just to resurface the road and put a few extra paving slabs in on Queens Road!! It takes them a year to paint a “cycle lane” along Old Shoreham Road. They’d manage to lay about 1 metre of tram track per week, it wouldn’t be finished until 2070.
Why can’t they just get electric busses? I asked Jason Kitcat this and he said “the engines aren’t powerful enough to go up hills” – but there must surely be some routes that don’t involve hills. Or get smaller size busses and run them more frequently. Idiots.
Feline1 I don’t think a company like Edburton or Dance would tender for a Tram contract.They probably earn enough out of the Council as it is.As for smaller buses why don’t they introduce smaller ones as you say like the ones they used to have running through Kemptown, possibly the problem is they cannot get enough drivers that is why they are trying to get more women to drive their Buses.
I would certainly suspect there’s scope for some smaller busses on some routes – most bus companies uses these –
they don’t all have to be great thundering double-deckers or ginormous bendy busses. But hey ho.
what we need in Brighton is congestion charging and the buses taken back into local government control as they are doing in Tyne and Wear,but at the moment there is no one on the council with the b***s to do it.