New Project: Development of a System to Report School Bus Stop Arm Violations

When a motorist ignores an extended school bus stop arm, it creates a direct and serious risk to children boarding and exiting a school bus. Capturing information about such incidents is a critical step in better understanding why they occur and how they can be prevented.

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Typically, these violations are documented to enable law enforcement to respond. However, there is inconsistency in how they are collected and aggregated, making it difficult to analyze data to develop proactive safety, education and enforcement efforts.

Additionally, non-reporting or under-reporting of violations is thought to be a significant limitation in understanding the scope and scale of this problem.

“Creation of the Stop-Arm Violation Education & Enforcement System (S.A.V.E²) is a critical step forward in creating a statewide database to proactively reduce and eliminate stop-arm violations,” said Sgt. Mike Krukowski, Office of Pupil Transportation, Minnesota State Patrol. “The insights we gain will create a pathway to protect our future generations by making this issue personal for all drivers as the catalyst for instilling a positive change in driver behavior, particularly for stop-arm violations.”

Objectives

In this project, researchers will design, implement and deploy a pilot system for collecting counts and descriptions of school bus stop arm violations to provide timely and actionable data that can be used to reduce safety risks to children traveling on school buses.

The system will consist of three primary elements:

An onboard hardware unit that allows drivers to press a button to log violations
A user-friendly web form for entering violation details
Dashboards that make the information available to law enforcement, bus operators, safety analysts, and other stakeholders