Redflex Brand Guidelines: Melbourne Traffic Cameras, a Chicago Case & Verra Mobility

An engineering base in Melbourne and a US arm in Phoenix.

Redflex is a name from Melbourne’s traffic-technology industry. English Wikipedia describes Redflex Holdings as a company providing vehicle monitoring and enforcement services to governments, police forces and traffic departments, and says it was listed on the Australian Securities Exchange in January 1997. Its business was split between two operating companies: Redflex Traffic Systems Pty Ltd, which covered Australia and the rest of the world, and Redflex Traffic Systems Inc., which covered the United States.

The engineering stayed at home. English Wikipedia says the group ran its systems engineering, system integration and research and development from South Melbourne, and that it worked with partners in other countries, among them ChinaTel Group in China. The American company was based in Phoenix, Arizona, and was owned by the Melbourne holding company, CBS Chicago reported in December 2016, describing the group as one that owns and operates a network of digital speed and red-light cameras around the world. The company “installs cameras that automatically record and ticket drivers who run red lights,” the same report said.

Those cameras were Redflex’s product and its public face. In England, English Wikipedia lists Redflex Holdings as one of two manufacturers holding Home Office type approval to supply equipment for HADECS 3, the camera system used to enforce variable speed limits on managed motorways, which was first installed on the M25 in Kent in 2014; the other approved manufacturer is Dynniq.

The company also attracted bidders. In 2011, English Wikipedia says, Redflex was the subject of a hostile takeover bid by the Macquarie Group and the Carlyle Group, which failed.

Chicago, Ohio and a 2016 agreement.

Redflex’s largest American programme became the centre of a long legal case. The Chicago programme, with 384 cameras, was the company’s largest contract in North America, English Wikipedia says. In late 2010, English Wikipedia says, the Chicago Tribune began reporting that a consultant hired by Redflex had made improper payments to a City of Chicago transportation official who oversaw the red-light camera contracts. An internal review reported in October 2012 found only one inappropriate expense; after the Tribune published further evidence, the company commissioned a new investigation led by a former Chicago inspector general.

That second report, delivered to the board in February 2013, found that the official had been given holidays and other gifts paid for through a senior executive’s expense account, English Wikipedia says. On 8 February 2013 the city’s Department of Procurement Services told Redflex that it would not be considered a responsible vendor for a new red-light camera tender. The Australian chairman, another director and the company’s top sales executive resigned; the executive concerned was dismissed and sued by the company, and in March 2013 the chief executive, general counsel and chief financial officer of the Phoenix headquarters left. Trading in Redflex shares was halted twice.

The case widened to Ohio. In 2015, English Wikipedia says, a former Redflex chief executive pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit federal programme bribery and honest-services fraud, over a scheme that channelled campaign contributions to elected officials in Columbus and Cincinnati to win or keep red-light camera contracts.

In December 2016 the US Department of Justice and the US Attorney’s office agreed not to seek criminal charges against Redflex Traffic Systems Inc. over the Chicago and Ohio conduct, CBS Chicago reported on 28 December 2016, citing the company’s “extensive and thorough cooperation.” Under the agreement the company accepted responsibility for conduct related to the illegal activities of employees, agreed to pay restitution to Chicago and to Columbus, undertook to cooperate with the Justice Department and other law enforcement agencies it designated, including authorities in Australia, and agreed to adopt a rigorous anti-bribery and anti-corruption compliance code. Separately, English Wikipedia notes that opposition to camera enforcement led to the removal of Redflex cameras in some cities in Texas and California.

How traffic system makers present themselves.

Traffic system makers sell to road authorities, cities and motorway operators rather than to the public, yet their work is some of the most visible equipment in any town. The signal heads at a junction, the gantries that span a motorway, the cameras mounted on poles and the white and yellow lines painted on the road surface all come from a small group of specialist companies, and most drivers pass their products without ever seeing a brand name.

That makes the way these companies present themselves unusual. Their brochures and websites tend to show the infrastructure in use: a junction at dusk with the signals lit, a motorway gantry carrying message signs, a tunnel portal, or a road-marking crew laying fresh lines at night while traffic is diverted. The other recurring picture is the control room, where operators sit in front of a wall of screens and maps showing the road network in real time.

Much of the business is built on long contracts, technical standards and acquisitions. Many of today’s groups were assembled by buying smaller signal makers, detection specialists and software companies, so one group may carry several older brand names in different countries, and a product range may run from glass beads and road paint to controllers, sensors and traffic management software.

The industry meets at trade fairs. Intertraffic, held in Amsterdam, with related events in the Americas, Asia and China, is one of the places where makers set out stands of signals, cameras and control-room displays for road authorities and contractors. This guide sets out what can be checked about each brand: who founded it, who owns it today and what it says about where its products are made, marking clearly what rests only on the company’s own word.

A scheme of arrangement and a delisting.

Redflex’s independence ended in 2021. On 26 January 2021 Traffic Technology Today reported that the American company Verra Mobility had announced it would acquire Redflex Holdings through a scheme of arrangement under Australian law, subject to shareholder, regulatory and court approvals, with completion then expected in May 2021. The magazine noted that the deal came just over a month after Redflex itself had bought Roadmetrics, a machine-vision, artificial-intelligence and video-analytics firm. Verra Mobility’s chief executive said the purchase would expand the company’s “portfolio of safe city solutions,” and Redflex’s group chief executive called the agreement “a strong endorsement of the quality of the Redflex business.”

The acquisition was completed in 2021 and Redflex was delisted from the Australian Securities Exchange, English Wikipedia says. Redflex Holdings therefore no longer exists as a listed company: it is owned by Verra Mobility, and its story as an independent Melbourne business runs from the 1997 listing to that sale.

For a design guide, Redflex shows how an engineering company from South Melbourne became a public name through the cameras it installed and the cases that followed them. Compare Verra Mobility, the group that bought it in 2021, and Sensys Gatso, another name in traffic enforcement. For this guide we use a stop red, asphalt black and a pale concrete grey with a sans, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

Keep Redflex’s identity on hand — save it to a board in the Made Good inspiration library.