DERBY – The city’s Board of Aldermen & Alderwomen voted unanimously June 11 to give Mayor Joseph DiMartino permission to sign a contract with a company to install external cameras on Derby school buses.

The contract will enable the company, Safe Fleet, to send $250 tickets to motorists who pass a school bus when the bus’s stop arm is extended. Derby will keep $50 of every fine collected. There is no cost to the city to install the system.

“That will be good because Derby Avenue is struggling right now with the buses,” DiMartino said after the vote.

The mayor was referring to several home security videos captured by a resident on Derby Avenue showing school buses being passed while the buses attempt to drop off or pick up students.

The problem happens on the section of Derby Avenue between Route 34 and Division Street. The videos have generated thousands of views on the Derby CT Community Forum, a Facebook group with about 10,000 members.

One video shows a car passing a bus on the bus’s passenger side as the bus is about to let students off. Press play on the video below. The article continues after the video.

The contract between Derby and Safe Fleet has yet to be signed. It is under review by the Derby corporation counsel.

The need for school bus cameras was first discussed by the Derby Board of Education in February. The members endorsed the concept. The board listened to a presentation from a company called Buspatrol, but that company didn’t submit a bid when the project went out to bid May 1, city officials said.

The city’s finance committee reviewed two bids during a meeting June 4 and recommended Safe Fleet based on the company’s accuracy and lack of back-end work for the city.

The city could have received a bigger cut of the fines by going with another company, but Derby Finance Director Brian Hall, citing a summary provided by Microsoft artificial intelligence, said it’s better to go with a company that issues tickets that hold up if challenged.

Hall repeatedly said making money for the city isn’t the goal. There probably aren’t enough people regularly passing school buses to generate noticeable revenue, Hall said.

“The goal is to stop and prevent this from occurring, not to generate revenue,” Hall said.

According to the documents submitted by Safe Fleet, seven high-tech cameras will be placed on every school bus in Derby. The cameras can read license plates and the software can cross-check vehicle registrations with the state Department of Motor Vehicles.

Safe Fleet, which started in 1999, said its system’s accuracy is strong, so “false positives” should not be an issue. In addition to AI software, two humans review each “event,” including a police officer.

Assuming there are no issues with the contract, the buses should be equipped by Sept. 1, the first day of school. The length of the contract and other terms are still being worked out. Once the contract is complete, it will be sent to the Alders and placed on file with the Derby Town Clerk’s office.

According to company documentation, Safe Fleet camera and its associated software is installed on 5,100 transit buses in New York City, along with 2,000 police vehicles in Chicago. School districts in Georgia, Florida, and Ohio use the bus cameras, too.

The company said they’ve installed more than 200,000 systems across the U.S. 

The company’s head office is in Montana.

The Valley Indy previously reported that the state created a law in 2024 that allows the bus cam companies to operate locally, including the issuance of a $250 fine. Click here to read an analysis of the law.