Transportant introduced a next-generation school bus stop arm camera designed to help reduce illegal passings of stopped school buses and improve student safety.

New Camera Features

Transportant said the updated stop arm camera was designed to address common issues with older camera systems, including low visibility and weather-related failures. Key features include:

• High-Resolution, Full-Color Digital Imaging: The camera captures full-color, high-speed photos and video at high resolution to improve the quality of evidence used for enforcement.

• Sealed, Weatherproof Housing: The camera is built as a single molded unit with an integrated lens, polycarbonate material, and rubberized seals to help prevent water intrusion.

• Always-On Recording: Unlike systems that only capture footage when the stop arm is deployed, the camera records activity around the bus at all times.

“The new Transportant external camera represents a significant leap forward in stop arm technology and plays a key role in an overall advanced school bus safety system,” said Martin Staples, CEO at Transportant. “By engineering a highly integrated design with advanced imaging, we’re enabling districts to improve enforcement outcomes, deter bad driver behavior, support their drivers, and keep students safe, while ensuring long-term reliability.”

Pilot Program and Safety Impact

Transportant cited national concerns around illegal school bus passings, saying buses are illegally passed approximately 218,000 times each school day, with an average of 108 deaths per year.

The stop arm camera was piloted at Platte County R-3 School District in Kansas as part of the district’s deployment of Transportant’s broader bus safety technology suite. Transportant said the system also includes:

• Interior real-time cameras and audio monitoring.

• Driver tablets with student rosters and GPS navigation.

• On-bus Wi-Fi.

• Student check-in and check-out technology.

• A mobile app for parents to track student location during routes.

“We’ve seen firsthand how existing cameras sometimes fail exactly when kids need them most — when weather or moisture interfere,” said J.T. Thomas, transportation director for the Platte County School District. “With the new Transportant camera, those failures are much reduced, and the video evidence is sharp and usable.”

Transportant said early use of the stop arm camera has captured close to 200 stop-arm law violations per school.