# First Student Expands AI Bus Technology in Connecticut

First Student is deploying its Halo AI-enabled bus technology across 2,600 vehicles serving more than 30 school districts in the Hartford and New Haven regions, with no additional cost to districts. The rollout includes parent-facing real-time tracking and driver tools for navigation, child checks, and camera monitoring, extending technology-enabled school transportation across Connecticut.

- The deployment is an example of a transportation technology rollout delivered through a bus operator without an additional charge to participating districts; procurement teams can assess how similar service arrangements allocate costs and responsibilities.
- Districts and transportation contractors should clarify operational responsibilities, data handling, and integration of the safety systems with existing processes, as identified in the signal.
- Companies providing school transportation, tracking, and fleet-safety technology may find opportunities to support comparable deployments across multi-district service areas.

**Jurisdictions:** sled
**Industries:** Transportation
**Topics:** Artificial Intelligence
**Published:** October 07, 2026

### Government Entities
- School districts in the Hartford and New Haven regions

### Vendors
- First Student ()

### Key Quotes
> What it does is it essentially brings together all of the people, processes, and technology that's powering school busing on a daily basis and it's providing capabilities to our operations teams to make sure that buses are on time and that they're safe,
> — Jason Kierna, Vice President of Information Technology at First Student

### Sources
- [First Student adding AI technology to buses in Hartford, New Haven](https://www.yahoo.com/news/us/articles/first-student-adding-ai-technology-023754539.html) - Yahoo