Atlanta Celebrates a Decade of Student Safety During Love the Bus Month

This February, Atlanta Public Schools and Verra Mobility celebrated Love the Bus Month by highlighting a major milestone: 10 years of Atlanta’s school bus stop-arm safety program. At a press conference highlighting the district’s student transportation safety programs, school leaders, Atlanta City Council President Marci Collier Overstreet, Atlanta Board of Education Chair Jessica Johnson, and Matt Reich of Verra Mobility shared exciting data demonstrating how automated enforcement is changing driver behavior and making Atlanta’s streets safer for students.

Since launching the school bus stop-arm program in 2015, APS has seen significant progress. In its first year, the program recorded 150,000 stop-arm citations. In 2025, that number declined to 98,000. More recently, APS saw a 64% reduction in citations from the first month to the last month of the 2023–2024 school year, highlighting how driver behavior continues to improve over time. So far this year, 2,440 stop-arm citations have been issued in Atlanta, reinforcing the continued need for enforcement.

Atlanta has also seen meaningful results from its school zone speed program since its launch in August 2023. Within the first month, the number of speeders dropped by 50%, falling from 8,532 to 4,157. Within four months, speeders declined by 75%, dropping to 2,108 by January 2024.

The percentage of drivers exceeding the speed limit by at least 11 mph has also decreased significantly. During the first year of the program, some sites saw 1.62% of all traffic exceeding the speed limit by 11 mph or more. At the beginning of the 2025–2026 school year, that average dropped to just 0.11% of traffic.

During the press conference, APS officials highlighted the importance of these programs in protecting students traveling to and from school. Matt joined district and city leaders in recognizing the impact of the partnership and presented the Verra Mobility Student Safety Champion Award to four Atlanta Public Schools employees, two crossing guards, Vera Lindsey and Connie Coleman, and two bus drivers, Carla Perkins and Michelle Owens, who go above and beyond each day to keep students safe.

As APS celebrates Love the Bus Month and a decade of its stop-arm program, the progress made over the past 10 years is clear. Violations are down, and driver behavior is changing, even as traffic volume increases. While there’s still more work to do, Atlanta serves as a positive example for how sustained, data-driven safety programs can create safer commutes for children.