A NEW fleet of environmentally friendly electric buses will be in use on the city’s streets by September.

The buses will operate on one of Brighton and Hove and Metrobus’s most popular routes.

An additional boost for the environment is that the buses can be set to run in zero-emissions mode throughout Brighton and Hove’s ultra-low emission zone, which includes North Street.

The company has invested £9.2 million in the buses, which are manufactured by Alexander Dennis Ltd and BAE.

These UK-built buses are fully electric with the electric motor powering each bus at all times, although a small diesel generator is used to top up the battery.

The fleet will be introduced on Route 5, one of the city’s busiest bus routes, which serves areas including Hove, Hollingbury, Hangleton, Preston Park and Patcham.

The new buses will also replace conventional wing mirrors with advanced new technology which will significantly reduce blind spots.

Two high-definition digital cameras on the front of each bus give drivers a wider-angled view of the road and better depth of field via two monitors inside the drivers’ cabs.

Brighton and Hove Buses and Metrobus’s engineering director Steve Ambury said the new cameras would dramatically enhance visibility for bus drivers and improve safety.

Mr Ambury said: “The peripheral view and the clarity of the picture on the monitors is far better than normal mirrors.

“It’s much easier to spot a bike coming down the side of the vehicle, for example. It shows it from a long way away.”

Drivers will no longer have to deal with reflection or glare from the sun on their wing mirrors and driving at night or in the rain is much easier as the cameras automatically adjust to changing light conditions. Software removes distortion from raindrops or dirt on the camera lens, further improving visibility.

The mirrorless system also does away with the possibility of mirrors being affected by condensation or ice because the cameras have their own heating mechanism to prevent that happening.

Bus driver and Unite representative Mark Baldey drove the demonstration bus and was impressed.

He said: “The picture quality is amazing and the angle is much wider.”