Finally, a use of the AI surveillance panopticon we can all agree on — maybe.
As TechSpot recently highlighted, school buses around the country are now carrying small AI-powered cameras to catch drivers who ignore those little fold-out stop signs they deploy when kids are getting on and off the vehicle. In theory, the practice makes roads a little less perilous to pedestrians, though to be fair, there’re still questions over its efficacy and privacy concerns.
One company developing these instant-karma machines, BusPatrol, has already equipped around 35,000 buses with its cameras across 24 states. Once it spots an offending driver, it reportedly sends that data to a human reviewer who then puts together an evidence package for the police to look over, before a ticket finally gets mailed out.
Its a niche industry, but one that seems to be catching on. Another company, AngelTrax, recently announced a partnership with the Idaho-based bus charter company Teton Stage Lines, Local News 8 reported.
Katherine Tolar, the vice president of operations at AngelTrax, claimed that 98 percent of violators who get caught never do it again after receiving a citation. “So we do know that its changing driver behavior,” she told Local News 8.
Another bus camera company, Verra Mobility, also said in August that its data also showed 98 percent of drivers who receive citations don’t commit another one, and that citations fall by 70 percent over a school year.
Still, these are the companies’ claims, and there’re questions to be asked over how effective a deterrent the cameras really are. In Montgomery County, Maryland, for example, BusPatrol racked up 375,000 tickets and $92 million in fines, an investigation by Type Investigations and Bloomberg found. But county records showed no evidence of a decline in collisions near stopped school buses, per the findings. Meanwhile, between 2019 and 2024, BusPatrol got to pocket about $40 million of the collected fines, while the county only kept $18.5 million.
In a post-Flock age, any fusion of traffic cameras and AI surveillance systems will have people on guard. But as far as we know, rogue cops can’t just beam into these bus cameras anywhere in the country as they could with Flock.
More on surveillance: Menacing Surveillance Obelisk Appears in Madrid