just how tough is the competition , page-3

re: just how tough is the competition for ishmael ishmael, you really have to read that ACS press release carefully and sift out the spin before any assumptions can be made.
You're getting parking contracts mixed up with red light camera contracts. The total of US cities with red light camera programs now is 115 covering about 1030+ approaches. Of these Redflex has about 430, now ahead of ACS with around 400. The ACS installations are mainly the old wet film type whereas Redflex systems are all digital.

The ACS press release reference to providing photo enforcement services to 15 out of 20 participating cities doesn't seem to make sense, probably what they were trying to say is that they provided 15 of their parking contract cities with RLC s as well.

ACS dropped the ball with a long delayed change to digital, they still do not seem able to provide a good digital system as they have tried to buy in off the shelf stuff and cobble it to their old back end parking type citation system. Redflex is well ahead of the pack now, main competition on the horizon may be Seimens and Quixote but it appears they will not really be up to speed for 12 to 18 months.
Luckily for Redflex a big number of larger cities are due to decide on RLC and speed camera programs within the next few months. These are L A, San Francisco in CA, Columbus (RTS already selected(, Cleveland and Cincinnatti in OH, Las Vegas, Tucson in AZ, plus Houston and a number of other Texan cities if the Texas legislation goes through.