The way SmartBus Live structures its contracts, it splits the revenue from citations three ways: 20 percent goes to the state, and the other 80 percent is divided between the local municipality and the company, with the company getting about two-thirds of that portion, said company President Thomas O’Connor.

Selected school buses are fitted with video cameras looking both forward and backward on the driver’s side. When a bus’s yellow caution lights activate, the cameras begin feeding live video to SmartBus Live’s headquarters via wireless technology.

If a technician at the office sees a vehicle go past when the “stop” arm is out and the lights are flashing, an eMail alert is sent to the local police department, and an officer there can log into the company website to review it. If the officer clicks “yes” on the computer screen, SmartBus Live sends out the ticket, which includes a website and pass code that the ticketed driver can use to call up a video of his or her violation.

Once they watch the video, the vast majority of accused violators pay the fine to the state instead of exercising their right to a trial in traffic court, O’Connor said.

Overall, the company has issued more than 12,000 citations in the five years it’s been operating, with the vast majority in Rhode Island, the first state to legalize use of the enforcement technology on buses, O’Connor said.

SmartBus Live puts out statistics saying that across the nation, each school bus gets passed illegally once a day. That doesn’t sound like a very big problem to some people, O’Connor acknowledged. But “when people throw that in my face, I tell them I’m a parent of four”—ages 9, 7, 4, and 2, two of whom ride school buses—“and with 7,000 school buses in Connecticut, that’s 7,000 opportunities for a child that’s getting on or off the bus to get injured, nicked, hit, or an accident to happen because somebody stops short.”

Material from the Lexington Herald-Leader, the Roanoke Times, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and the Hartford Courant was used in this report. Copyright 2012; distributed by MCT Information Services.