A second school transportation company has agreed to pay $440,000 to settle allegations that it conspired with a competitor to divide municipal contracts, limit competition, and raise transportation costs for school districts in Lynn, Saugus, and Dedham.

The settlement with JSC Transportation Services Inc. follows a $2.4 million agreement reached in July with Beacon Mobility Corporation over its role in the same alleged scheme. The two settlements total $2.84 million, most of which will be distributed among the affected municipalities, according to the Attorney General’s Office.

JSC, a Waltham-based company that provides special education transportation services to Massachusetts school districts, also operates through related companies, including YCN Transportation Inc. and MassTran Corp.

According to an assurance of discontinuance filed by the Attorney General’s Office, JSC and Beacon agreed in 2022 not to compete against one another for student transportation contracts in certain municipalities. Under the alleged arrangement, JSC stayed out of markets allocated to Beacon in exchange for Beacon not competing for contracts sought by JSC.

The agreement reduced competition and allowed the companies to raise prices for transporting special education students in Lynn, Saugus, and Dedham, according to the Attorney General’s Office.

The state also alleges that JSC concealed the agreement while seeking payment under municipal contracts and signed a certificate of non-collusion in connection with a Saugus contract despite its arrangement with Beacon.

The Attorney General’s Office did not identify JSC when it announced the Beacon settlement in July, referring to the company at the time only as a competing student transportation provider.

That earlier settlement resolved allegations that Beacon, operating through subsidiaries including Van Pool Transportation LLC and NRT Bus Inc., agreed not to compete with JSC for contracts in designated communities. Beacon subsidiaries had held Lynn’s in-district special education transportation contract since at least 2015.

Court documents filed in that matter included excerpts from internal company emails. In one May 2022 message, a Beacon employee wrote that the company should not bid on the Saugus contract because it did not want to take work from the competing company, adding that the competitor would be coming to Lynn the following year.

The Attorney General’s Office alleged that Beacon later became the sole bidder for Lynn’s special education transportation contract beginning in August 2022 after submitting a certificate falsely stating that its bid was not the product of collusion.

Under the new settlement, JSC will pay $440,000 and maintain an antitrust compliance program for at least five years. The company must also notify the Attorney General’s Office of any acquisitions of transportation companies during that period and cooperate with future investigations.

JSC must additionally report any attempt by a competitor to allocate contracts, fix prices, rig bids, or exchange competitively sensitive information involving student transportation contracts in Massachusetts.

Beacon agreed to similar requirements under its July settlement, including maintaining an antitrust compliance program for five years and notifying the state of transportation-company acquisitions for the next decade.

An assurance of discontinuance resolves the Attorney General’s allegations without a trial or admission of liability.

The JSC matter was handled by Assistant Attorney General Katherine Krems and Antitrust Division Chief Anthony Mariano.

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