Verra Mobility - Earnings Call - Q4 2019
March 2, 2020
Transcript
Speaker 0
Greetings. Welcome to the Verra Mobility Corporation Fourth Quarter and Full Year twenty nineteen Financial Results Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode. A question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press 0 on your telephone keypad.
Please note this conference is being recorded. I will now turn the conference over to your host, Mark Griffin, investor relations. Mister Griffin, you may begin.
Speaker 1
Thank you. Good afternoon, and welcome to Verra Mobility's fourth quarter and year end twenty nineteen earnings call. Today, we'll be discussing the results announced in our press release issued after the market closed. With me on the call is David Roberts, Veramotility's Chief Executive Officer and Tricia Chito, Chief Financial Officer. They will begin with prepared remarks, and then we'll open up the call for Q and A.
During the call, we will make statements related to our business that may be considered forward looking, including statements concerning our financial guidance for the full year of 2020, our plans to execute on our growth strategy, our ability to maintain existing and acquire new customers, and other statements regarding our plans and prospects. Forward looking statements may often be identified with words such as we expect, we anticipate, or upcoming. These statements reflect our views only as of today and should not be considered our views as of any subsequent date. We undertake no obligation to update or revise these forward looking statements. Forward looking statements are not promises or guarantees of future performance and are subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties that could cause the actual results to differ materially from our expectations.
For a discussion of material risks and other important factors that could affect our actual results, please refer to those contained in our annual report on Form 10 k, which is available on the Investor Relations section of our website at ir.verramobility.com and on the SEC's website at sec.gov. Finally, during the course of today's call, we will refer to certain non GAAP financial measures. A reconciliation of GAAP to non GAAP measures is included in our press release issued after the market today, which is located on our website again at ir.veramobility and the SEC's website at sec.gov. With that, let me turn the call over to David.
Speaker 2
Thank you, Mark, and thank you to everyone joining us on the call today. We are pleased with our execution throughout the year and ended 2019 on a strong note with a solid quarter. We transformed the business in 2018 through two highly strategic acquisitions, and 2019 showed investors that our diversified product portfolio can support an attractive combination of growth and profitability at scale. As Tricia will discuss in detail later during the call, our fourth quarter revenue grew 18% year over year to 112,500,000 and our adjusted EBITDA came in at $59,600,000 up 26% year over year. For 2019, revenue grew 15% year over year to $448,700,000 and our adjusted EBITDA came in at $241,400,000 up 15% year over year.
We were able to exceed expectations across our key metrics and deliver consistent quarter over quarter performance despite the headwind created from the state of Texas passing legislation that eliminated most red light camera programs in the state. The drivers of our business remain strong the commercial camera programs in the state. The drivers of our core business remain strong. In the Commercial Services segment, cashless tolling continues to drive demand for our product and increasing tolling activity. And in the Government Solutions segment, our growth is primarily driven by the expansion of school zone speed in New York City.
The strength of our core business and our longer term smart initiatives give us confidence in our ability to maintain momentum throughout 2020 and support our vision to be the global leader in smart transportation. For the fourth quarter, the Commercial Services segment grew revenues 17% year over year to $68,200,000 and reported adjusted EBITDA of $42,200,000 up 23% year over year. For 2019, revenue increased 15 to $276,500,000 and reported adjusted EBITDA of $175,400,000 up 14%. The momentum in the quarter was driven by our continued collaboration with our customers to increase adoption of tolling programs through both product and operational innovations. A strong example the collaboration with our customers is the amended agreement with Avis Budget Group that enhances their ability to price optimize their tolling product while also extending the contract by one year to 2025.
The terms of the contract are materially the same and we are excited to serve Avis budget for many years to come. Additionally, there has been a positive increase in overall toll activity and usage, which is providing a nice tailwind to our commercial business. As we have highlighted in the past, geographical expansion of our RAC tolling product to Europe is a meaningful growth driver of our Commercial Services segment in the future. During 2019, we continued our investment in the foundation of the European tolling business. This culminated with the acquisition of Pagatelia and our partnership with Rent A Car.
In October, we acquired Spanish based Pagatelia, which provides electronic toll management services to consumers, financial institution and OEMs. Pagetelia is a critical piece for our European expansion strategy because of its interoperable solution and strong network of toll authority relationships across Southern Europe. Finally, in December, we announced our tolling agreement with a French rental car company called Rent A Car. The agreement has been executed and technology integration is underway as we speak. This year we are excited to enter the next phase of expansion, which is to create proof of concept pilots with multiple RAC customers across Europe.
We have spoken with many customers and they are ready to get started, but there remain many challenges in organizational readiness and in negotiating and executing agreements. Some of those obstacles are back office technology requirements such as GDPR and customer billing, while others are more physical like transponder management. But all are vital steps that will take some time to work through. For 2020, we are not expecting any material revenues as our objective is to launch multiple pilots in multiple countries that will build revenue momentum for 'twenty one. While the pace of execution has been slower than we originally anticipated, we remain confident in the opportunity and will continue to invest to bring the solution to fruition.
Additionally, we are pleased to announce that we have hired a new European leader for our commercial business. Czirk Rolfsema joined us in January and will lead our commercial operations from Amsterdam. Czirk joins us after a distinguished career at TomTom where he led global business in Europe and in China. Our Government Solutions segment grew revenues 21% year over year to $44,300,000 and reported adjusted EBITDA of $17,500,000 up 34 year over year. Growth in the Government Solutions segment this quarter was primarily driven by the expansion of the school's own speed program in New York City, which included additional hardware revenue and the subsequent service revenue associated with newly installed cameras.
As we have discussed through 2019, we have been working with the New York City Department of Transportation to expand the number of school zone speed enforcement areas. Our initial order was for 300 cameras as of December 31. We have installed all of them. In October, we received a notice to proceed for seven twenty additional school zone speed cameras. We are excited about the opportunity to continue executing on this important public safety initiative and have appropriately scaled our operations to meet this demand.
We believe our implementation schedule during 2020 will be approximately 50 to 60 cameras per month, but recognize we may not meet that level every month due to factors that are out of our control, such as weather. We also maintain our consistently high renewal rates again in Q4. During the quarter, we renewed key customer programs in Yonkers, New York Howard County, Maryland Marietta, Georgia and Fulton County to name a few. Additionally, we
Speaker 3
have
Speaker 2
signed contracts with Spaulding County and Carroll County in Georgia for school zone speed programs. We believe these are two of many opportunities we have in Georgia and are preparing to respond to other outstanding RFPs. Overall, we continue execute on the opportunities in front of us and are very pleased with our traction during the fourth quarter. Over the years, we have voiced that M and A would be an important strategic part of our growth strategy and we plan to use our strong balance sheet and cash flow position as the lever. We remain diligent in our M and A process and have developed a strong pipeline of opportunities, which we are hopeful will yield one to two deals in 2020.
That said, we remain steadfast in our diligence process and are focused on three types of transactions: One, those that solidify our position in the core markets we serve today. Two, diversify our product portfolio through adjacent markets, as an example, things like parking, traffic management, congestion pricing, fleet management, etcetera. And strategic tuck ins where we can accelerate growth in areas that we have already invested like European tolling. We anticipate 2020 to be a banner year for us fueled by ongoing penetration with our RAC customers in The U. S.
And the implementation of school zone speed programs in New York City and Georgia. Additionally, we
Speaker 1
are planning to invest heavily in our core platforms to remain on the leading edge of technology. These investments will enhance the platforms that serve our customers, our financial systems and other processes, which
Speaker 2
will optimize our ability to deliver consistent growth to our shareholders. We are expecting the bulk of the investment to take place in 2020, though some of the systems may not be fully updated until 2021. For the full year of 2020, we are expecting total revenue in the range of $495,000,000 to $513,000,000 or 10% to 14% year over year growth and expect adjusted EBITDA to be in the range of $253,000,000 to $261,000,000 or an EBITDA margin of 51%. In summary, our strong fourth quarter capped off another great year for Verra Mobility. Looking to 2020, we believe that Verra Mobility is well positioned to execute on our initiatives and further leverage our platforms.
With that, let me hand it over to Tricia to walk through some of the financials in more detail.
Speaker 4
Thanks, David, and good afternoon, everyone. I'll provide a more detailed overview of our full year and fourth quarter twenty nineteen financial performance, and then we'll open up the call for questions. We've provided a short earnings deck on our website that has reconciliations from GAAP to the non GAAP results that we'll be discussing today. If you're following along on the investor deck, we're on Slide two. We're happy to report that we exceeded the high end of our guidance range for both revenue and adjusted EBITDA, with total revenue grew nearly $60,000,000 or 15.4% to $448,700,000 for the full year 2019.
Product revenue generated nearly half of the total revenue growth, with sales and installations of the 300 school zone speed cameras that David previously mentioned. For the year, adjusted EBITDA was $241,400,000 up $31,900,000 or 15.2%, from the $209,500,000 in 2018. Growth in product sales and well executed integration synergies contributed to our adjusted EBITDA expansion. Adjusted EBITDA margins remained strong at 54% for both 2018 and 2019. Slide three has results for our Commercial Services business segment, which delivers tolling, violation processing, and title registration services to rental car companies and fleet management companies in The U.
S. And processes violations in Europe. Commercial services had a great year, with the full year 2019 service revenue growing $35,100,000 or 14.5% to $276,500,000 Much of this growth was driven by higher tolling activity across the entire product portfolio and a shift in product mix that positively impacted revenue. And much of the revenue increase dropped the bottom line, with adjusted EBITDA growing $22,200,000 to $175,400,000 for the full year 2019. This business segment produced adjusted EBITDA margins of 63% for the full years ended 2018 and 2019.
For the quarter, total revenue grew 17% to $68,200,000 up from $58,400,000 in the same quarter of the prior year. You might recall that in Q4 of twenty eighteen, we had an out of period adjustment that impacted both revenue and adjusted EBITDA to put downward pressure on the quarter, which created improved year over year growth for the 2019 quarter. Adjusted EBITDA of $42,200,000 in the fourth quarter of twenty nineteen grew $8,000,000 or 23.4 percent year over year, from $33,200,000 for Q4 of twenty eighteen. Our adjusted EBITDA performance benefited from strong revenue growth. Moving to our Government Solutions segment, which operates photo enforcement programs from municipalities and school districts with an end to end solution, Government Solutions generated full year revenue of $172,300,000 up $24,800,000 or 16.8% over the full year 2019.
Total revenue is comprised of service revenue, that's the monthly fees that we generate from operating photo enforcement programs, and product revenue, which results from selling and installing camera systems. Service revenue for the full year 2019 was $140,200,000 down $2,200,000 or 1.6% from $142,500,000 for the full year ended 2018. Although the service revenue was relatively flat on a combined basis, our various product lines are experiencing divergent trends. For the full year, our red light photo enforcement program declined approximately $10,000,000 year over year. If you recall, Texas banned red light photo enforcement earlier this year, resulting in a $5,400,000 reduction of service revenue in 2019.
And this will continue to impact us for the next two quarters. The remainder of the decline in red light relates to program losses in Florida and price declines upon renewal. We also exited our streetlight maintenance program earlier this year, resulting in a $2,500,000 reduction in service revenue. This business was non core and non profitable. These declines were offset by our speed program revenue, which grew approximately $10,000,000 We installed over 400 new speed cameras in 2019, and believe that the growth in speed programs will outpace the declines in red light.
You can see that this is happening in our fourth quarter results, where Q4 twenty nineteen service revenue was up 3.6% over the same period in the prior year. Product revenue for the full year 2019 was $32,000,000 up from $5,100,000 for the full year 2018. The increase was driven by the 300 unit order from New York City to install school zone speed cameras. We currently have another order for an additional seven twenty cameras that we've begun installing in 2020. For the quarter, total revenue of $44,300,000 grew 21% year over year from $36,700,000 in the fourth quarter of twenty eighteen.
This was driven by product revenue of $7,600,000 for the quarter, up from $1,300,000 for the same quarter in the prior year. Service revenue for the quarter was $36,700,000 up 3.6%, or 1,300,000 on a year over year basis. Q4 twenty nineteen adjusted EBITDA of $17,400,000 increased approximately $4,400,000 or 38% from $13,100,000 for the same period in the prior year. And adjusted EBITDA margins for this business were 39%, up from 36% in the prior year. The large increase in product sales is benefiting both the top and the bottom line of the Government Solutions segment.
Turning to the next slide, we show our consolidated results for the quarter. The combined results of the business segments we just discussed generated total revenue of $112,500,000 for the fourth quarter and grew $17,400,000 or 18% from $95,100,000 in the fourth quarter of twenty eighteen. Q4 twenty nineteen adjusted EBITDA of $59,600,000 increased by $12,300,000 or 26% from the adjusted EBITDA of $47,300,000 in the prior year. Fourth quarter adjusted EBITDA margins remained strong at 53%. The company reported net income of $9,200,000 in the quarter, compared to a loss of $38,000,000 in the same period in the prior year.
EPS for the current quarter was $06 per share, compared to a loss of $0.27 per share for the same quarter of 2018. Tax expense for the quarter and the full year was $3,800,000 and $13,600,000 respectively. The full year effective tax rate of 28.9% was in line with our expectations. The company generated $133,800,000 in cash from operating activities 2019, compared to generating $46,000,000 for the full year 2018. This improvement is directly correlated to the improved net income.
We spent $29,700,000 on CapEx in 2019 compared to $26,600,000 in the prior year. Most of this CapEx is used for photo enforcement equipment for our customers across the country. Free cash flow, which is cash flow from operations less CapEx, was $104,100,000 in 2019. As
Speaker 1
of
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December 31, we had $894,000,000 of cash on hand I'm sorry, of debt, and $131,000,000 of cash on hand, for net debt of $763,000,000 bringing our leverage ratio to 3.2 times. Our credit facility contains provisions that require mandatory prepayments on excess cash flow. Based on a leverage ratio, our required prepayment is $19,700,000 which will be made in Q1 of twenty twenty. In February of twenty twenty, we repriced our credit facility, lowering the interest rate from LIBOR plus three seventy five to LIBOR plus three twenty five. This change will save the company approximately $4,500,000 in annual interest expense.
In summary, we continue to execute well, delivering strong top and bottom line results, and believe that Vero Mobility remains well positioned to maintain this momentum throughout 2020. For the full year 2020, we are expecting total revenue in the range of $495,000,000 to $512,000,000 or 10% to 14% year over year growth. Included in that growth, we expect product sales in the range of 45,000,000 to $52,000,000 We have an order to install an additional seven twenty school zone speed cameras. The majority of this order will be fulfilled in 2020, but at a lower price than we had on our last order in 2019. We should expect price reduction of approximately 25% from the previous year.
We expect service revenue to grow 8% to 10% year over year, generating between $450,000,000 and $460,000,000 for the full year 2020. We expect adjusted EBITDA to be in the range of $253,000,000 to $261,000,000 or an adjusted EBITDA margin of 51%. 2020 will be a year of growth investment. We're making a meaningful investment in our systems, primarily around invoicing and billing, and we'll continue to invest in European tolling. These investments, along with the impact of lower price on product sales, account for slightly lower margins in 2020.
Thank you for taking the time to join us on this call today. And with that, we'd be happy to take your questions now.
Speaker 0
Our first question is from Steven Walls, Morgan Stanley. Please proceed with your question.
Speaker 3
On the revenue outlook, we need the 10 to 14%. Tricia, could you maybe take us through Are moving
Speaker 2
you David, you broke up on the beginning of your statement. Could you start from the beginning, please?
Speaker 3
Yeah. Sure. Is it am I coming to you better now?
Speaker 2
You are. Okay.
Speaker 3
Great. Maybe if we just look at the pieces driving the revenue growth guidance in 2020. I was hoping, Tricia, maybe you could just walk us through some of the moving parts there. If I'm thinking about the math right, just given the tailwind you're gonna get from installing the cameras, What does that mean for the tolling business, and sort of what are the drivers there given, you know, it looks like it's a bit of a departure from the mid teens growth you saw in that segment this year?
Speaker 5
Yeah. And I think we've said so. And so
Speaker 4
the camera installation is for the government solutions segment. But what you're going to see is you're going to see these sort of two things happening. Well, in Government Solutions we're going to continue to see a decline in red light, although not as meaningful as it was in the current year. But you're going to see the rise of speed as we continue to install cameras, not only in New York City, but also in Georgia. So we believe that by the end of twenty twenty, that the speed will be the largest product revenue that we'll have within the Government Solutions business segment.
So you combine those service trends will get you double digit growth on the service side. And then you've got growth coming out of the product revenue as we're going to install basically double the amount of cameras or sell double the amount of cameras in 2020 as we did in 2019. On the commercial services side, we've said that on the outer years we thought that commercial services would be like a 6% to 8% grower, and that's where it's trending to now. So that that's not surprising for us. With our growth in the future coming from European tolling, which as David mentioned, probably will materialize more significantly as we move into 2021.
Speaker 3
Got it. Okay. That's helpful. Thanks. And then just maybe on the rental car agreement.
I think I heard, David, you said that you extended the Avis contract out by a year to 2025. Do have any updated thoughts on your approach towards, I guess, later in the year coming to the table with the other two major partners?
Speaker 2
Nothing that we haven't said before, but obviously we'll just approach them at the appropriate time. I think the approach that we took with ABG is a good one, which is we serve them well. We continue to partner and find ways to help them, and that led to an extension. So we're hoping that that same strategy will work at the appropriate timing that works for both us and for our customers with the other two.
Speaker 3
Got it. Okay. And then maybe just one quick one if I could squeeze it in. Obviously, pretty top of mind right now, you know, rental car activity and travel around the coronavirus. Anything you guys are seeing or anything you're watching for that, you know, would be relevant for us to be careful of here?
Speaker 2
Yeah, two things. One is we get our information is probably lagging because we get our things after the fact. I don't know that we have any real data to support a decline in that at all today. Part two of that is that international renters is a relatively small portion of the total number of renters that we use. It's a really small number.
So that being said, we're going to remain vigilant. We'll watch what's happening as this continues to play out. Obviously, there's a lot of real time information. But as of yet, we haven't seen anything material that will impact our business.
Speaker 3
Okay, great. Thanks.
Speaker 2
Yes, thank you.
Speaker 0
Our next question is from Carey, Bank of America. Please proceed with your question.
Speaker 6
Good afternoon, and thank you for taking my questions. I'm just starting, hoping you could provide a little more color on the adjusted EBITDA margin guide. I know you called out a few contributors driving the faster expense growth in 2020. I was just trying to get a better sense of the magnitude of each and explaining the year over year step up.
Speaker 4
Yeah. You figure that that just the the overall, you know, margins would be attributed from the product revenue, where product revenue last year was accretive to our overall margins for the company as a whole. And with this year, with the discounts that we're giving to, you know, one of our largest customers in New York City, those those margins will that'll put a little pressure on it. You can probably think about that as being about $5,000,000 of pressure on our margins. In addition to that, we have decided to make a real meaningful investment in our systems.
If you think about our company, we are the accumulation of several founder led businesses, each creating their own proprietary software, which we have all brought together. And and this is the year that we wanna make sure that we are creating stability for the future growth. And by doing so, we're gonna make a sizable investment in technology.
Speaker 6
Got it. So those incremental investments in the invoicing and billing, is that something that's more one time in nature, meaning we're gonna go through in 2020 and then you could see kind of a rebound in the margins? Or is this something that you expect will continue kinda for the foreseeable future?
Speaker 2
No, we I think it's just a one time. What I said is that it's going to be mostly done this year. There may be some tail effect that goes into next year, but it would be de minimis. I think it's really focused for this year.
Speaker 6
Got it. And then final one for me. It sounds like you're expecting a pretty meaningful step down in growth in the commercial services business from a say kind of like the mid teens growth range we saw this year and we've seen for the last several years to more kind of high single digits range. Is there anything worth calling out beyond just law of large numbers? Just because it seems like a pretty material step down kind of from where you were exiting 4Q.
Thank you.
Speaker 4
Yeah. And I think we've been saying that for about a year, that that's really where we saw the market going. And really, it's an accumulation that this business segment has been growing in the mid to high teens for the last four to five years. And as we sort of it just becomes more and more difficult to hurdle those high expectations. You know?
So we we said that this business unit would settle into sort of a six to 8% growth, and that's really what we'll see. And then in 2021, as we sort of get the the the steam under our our wings or the wind under our wings for the European rental car tolling, we'll we'll see growth there as well.
Speaker 6
Thank you for taking my questions. Sure.
Speaker 0
Our next question is from Daniel Moore, CJS Securities. Please proceed with your question.
Speaker 3
Thank you, and good afternoon, David and
Speaker 7
Trish. Hi. Maybe just talk a little bit about the price concessions for in New York City. Do you see that as kind of the new norm as far as ASPs are concerned? And then beyond that, you mentioned Georgia and some other opportunities.
Maybe just talk about the level of dialogue for other safety zone enforcement area contracts.
Speaker 2
Yeah, New York, the discount that we referenced are really just related to volume. It's a volume discount. I mean, was really the gist of it. So that's, and we had talked about that previously, I believe.
Speaker 4
Yeah. Yeah, so I mean, I think we'd previously said that, you know, if you guys were modeling, you could, last year, you could probably model a new camera in about a $100,000 in revenue. And this year, I'd you know, you're probably better off modeling it in a more like $75,000. Mhmm. And then the opportunities that we have to grow in Georgia are really us just approaching our customer, and I think we have two new contracts there.
Speaker 2
Two new contracts, and we have a good pipeline. So we'll feel confident about our plans for Georgia for the year.
Speaker 7
Very helpful. And then just maybe a couple of housekeeping. Trish, as we think about modeling for next year, kind of tax rate and D and A, and then just generally where we see CapEx shaking out.
Speaker 5
Yeah, I think you should
Speaker 4
put your tax rate right at that sort of 28% is probably a good tax rate for us. It's higher than what you're probably previously modeling, but that's because the shift in our overall apportionment of state revenue is moving from low tax states to high tax states. Think out of Texas into New York kind of thing. So that's probably a good way to think about it going forward. And then for the CapEx, so not only do the investments that we're making in our systems hitting our P and L, but also it's going to be hitting our capitalization of internal labor as well, Where CapEx this year was right around the $30,000,000 mark, you probably should think about it next year in the 35,000,000 to $40,000,000 mark.
Speaker 7
Perfect. I'll sneak one more in, if I may. Just generally speaking, maybe an update on the progress that we're making, both with Pagatelia and then more generally in Europe. Obviously, it sounds like 2020 continues to be an investment year, number one. Number two, any just with corona, I know it's hard to tell right now, but is anything that might slow that progress down, at least based on what you're seeing today?
Speaker 2
Yes. I mean, so the first part is that we continue to make progress in Europe, and we only closed Pagatelia toward the end of the year. So we're still in but they've been doing well. We have our new leader there that's kind of taken the helm of our European operations who will operate out of Amsterdam, which is where our European headquarters is. We're in the middle of coding and developing right now for the first pilot, then we have many many sort of contractual discussions happening with others.
But as I mentioned in the discussion, it's, you know, there's just things that are slightly more complicated for people that are starting from scratch that they have to do to consider to launch program. It's not as if they were doing it. This is new to the world inside of Europe. As it relates to the coronavirus, I mean, it's still too very, very early. I don't anticipate given that we would be doing pilots with a relatively low number of vehicles that would have any impact on our ability to roll out because it's so small.
So I would anticipate that had that been a couple years from now, then that might be a different answer just depending on what the travel restrictions and the challenges are in Europe as a of the virus.
Speaker 7
Very helpful. Appreciate the color. Thank you.
Speaker 2
Yeah. Thanks.
Speaker 0
Our next question is from Ashish Sabadra, Deutsche Bank. Please proceed with your question.
Speaker 8
Thanks. Thanks for taking my question. So question about the Avis. Avis on that call talked about their unlimited toll product, and that's gaining some pretty good traction among their commercial customers. It's rolled out, I believe, in three states, and they're rolling it out across the country.
So my question was, how do you think about this kind of an unlimited product being rolled out by other providers? And how do we think about that opportunity over the midterm? Thanks.
Speaker 2
Yeah. I mean, we think it's great because ultimately, we're the the inventor of the you know, we're we're a part of that that model that they're leveraging. We think that as a rental car company look for more customer friendly sort of pricing models, if that's good for the industry and good for them, and the all inclusive or the sort of, as they call the unlimited, is a a great way to think about it. So we're fully supportive of that, which is and we have we've been helping them along the way.
Speaker 8
That's great. And then maybe just on Europe, a follow-up question there would be, how should we think about the revenue opportunity in the midterm? I understand that's gonna be material starting more 2021, but as we think over the next year or two years, how should we think about both the revenue growth potential by as Europe comes on and how that helps accelerate the commercial revenue growth, but also how, like, revenue opportunity over the next three to five years? Thanks.
Speaker 5
I think I think what we need
Speaker 4
to do, Ashish, is really get the first pilot program up and running so that we can get all the right statistics to say what that's going to look like. You know, I you know, I a lot of people are saying, hey. Could this be a $30,000,000 product? And I think the answer is yes, but not in that time frame that you proposed. I think it's got it's got potential to grow.
It's just gonna take us a little longer. The the customers are more they're not as concentrated as they hear. Are they they're here in The US, and and we don't have enough information from the pilot to see what the price points are gonna be that we're gonna go to market at.
Speaker 8
Okay. No. That's helpful. And maybe if I can sneak in one final one. Just on congestion pricing, have you had any other conversations with other cities?
And any kind of traction that you're seeing there, again, the midterm opportunity on that front? Yes.
Speaker 2
I mean we still remain very interested in congestion congestion pricing for the future. You've probably seen several cities are doing studies as we speak outside of the New York City program. I think we still want to see what happens, what the model is that they settle to, which is I think is gonna take some level of time. It's still very early. That being said, we still feel like we have products and services and knowledge and know how that can be valuable.
And so as we get line of sight to a clear what the market's gonna look like, then I think we can be slightly more specific and slightly more aggressive in how we're gonna be pursuing that go forward. It's still it is just so very, very early, meaning that there's no program in The United States today. So we we've got some waiting to do to really figure out what the best way to support our customers will be.
Speaker 8
And that's very helpful. Thanks, David and Tricia.
Speaker 2
Yeah. Thanks, Ashish.
Speaker 4
Thank you.
Speaker 0
Our next question is from Timothy Chiodo, Credit Suisse. Please proceed with your question.
Speaker 9
Thank you. Okay. I wanted to follow-up a little bit on the New York school bus stop arm opportunity and then a quick follow-up on the product pricing. So on the New York school bus stop arm opportunity, just to dig into it a little bit more, maybe we could put some granularity around the opportunity. Our understanding is there's roughly 10,000 buses in the city and that the monthly revenue there could be more in sort of the $500 range.
And also fully understand that that would not be a full year round opportunity, maybe nine months per year. Maybe just some added context there given you obviously have a very strong relationship with the City Of New York.
Speaker 2
Yeah, that's exactly right. I mean, just I think you guys have gotten to know us well enough now, just because the law has passed and there are the buses there doesn't mean that things move exactly as quickly as we would like. That being said, I think that's a very fair way to think about the opportunity, which is the total number of buses by a slightly, you know, the 500 and then thinking of, you know, the nine months, eight and a half month sort of total time that they're gonna be deployed is I think is the appropriate way to think about the opportunity. And I think we'll start to see traction on that probably toward school next year, not I I don't suspect there would be anything going on in that in the spring.
Speaker 1
Okay. Is this kind of in thing where
Speaker 2
the fall of twenty, not next year as in '21. Excuse me.
Speaker 9
Fall of twenty twenty, some of that begins. Yeah.
Speaker 2
I would suspect so.
Speaker 9
Question, is it sort of a school district by school district decision making process? Or is it an assumption that all 10,000 eventually, maybe it takes a few years, all 10,000 eventually are equipped with the cameras? Or is it some subset of that 10,000?
Speaker 2
It'll probably it depends on the school district. So it is a there is multiple decision makers involved, which is why it takes some level of time to roll out. In general, it you wouldn't necessarily have to put a camera on every single bus, but it just depends again on the school just because some people do vote for a full fleet install, others do not depending on the routing. And it's still a little early to determine how we would be doing that in the city. So right now, I I look at the the 10,000 as TAM, and underneath that is what we'll get into once we get some more information to start deploying.
Speaker 9
Okay. Great. Thanks a lot. And then the last one is very minor. I apologize.
You might have touched on this earlier. I had to hop off for something else briefly. But on the product pricing, I know you mentioned, think about, I think, dollars 75,000 instead of 100,000 for this sort of next round, makes total sense buying in greater bulk. Just roughly speaking, I think that the overall product margin, including some of the other items that go into that revenue line item, have hit as high as high 50s. What percentage in terms of a gross margin should we be thinking about this year?
Does this put us into sort of the high 40s?
Speaker 4
Yeah, probably mid-40s, not as high as you're thinking.
Speaker 9
Mid-40s.
Speaker 4
Yep.
Speaker 9
Okay, great. Thanks a lot for for taking my questions.
Speaker 3
Yeah. Thank you.
Speaker 0
Our next question is from Louis DiPalma, William Blair. Please proceed with your question.
Speaker 10
David, Tricia, and Mark, good afternoon.
Speaker 1
Hey. Good afternoon. For me.
Speaker 10
When you say that you expect Europe to generate material revenue in 2021, are you assuming any contribution from your big three US rental car partners in Europe?
Speaker 2
Yeah. I think, yes, we would assume that we would be working with some of the customers that we serve currently in The US.
Speaker 5
Yeah. And I I think
Speaker 4
what we're saying is just that we're not gonna have any meaningful revenue in 2020, and that'll start to escalate as we move into 2021. But, you know, on a on a base of revenue of $512,000,000, you know, the meaning material or meaningful is, you know, in the eye of the beholder.
Speaker 10
Indeed. And, you know, related to that question, by the end of twenty twenty, should most of the upfront European infrastructure investment be complete? And Yep. I guess, in total, how much of how much CapEx and OpEx is necessary to form the foundation for for Europe?
Speaker 2
So the first part of your question is, yeah, we would anticipate by even later in the year that we would have sort of load balance the infrastructure to meet with what we think the demand will be related to the pilots. Once the pilots go outside of that, meaning more pan European, multi country, those types of things that we may have to hire or adjust accordingly to meet that demand.
Speaker 5
Yeah. And I think I think in the
Speaker 4
2019 numbers, we had about $3,000,000 of investments in in Europe for the expansion. And and, you know, you were probably gonna have 3 to $5,000,000 this year as we continue to roll out to multiple countries.
Speaker 10
Okay. Okay. And one final one. How many cameras for the New York City school zone speed camera contracts are currently in backlog relative to the more than 600 that you expect to install this year? Like, in other words, at the end of this year, how many cameras are you contemplating will be remaining for 2021?
Speaker 4
I I think what we've originally said is that we believe that if they were gonna expand into 750 school zones from the initial 150 that they started with, that it would be about 1,200 cameras, of which we installed 300 in 2019. And we've got an order for seven twenty for this year. But if we said we're going to install 600 of those, then we would still have 300 cameras left to roll into 2021.
Speaker 10
Sounds good. Thanks, everybody.
Speaker 0
Our next question is from Daniel Moore, CJS Securities. Please proceed with your question.
Speaker 7
Thanks again. Last one for me, but just an update on capital allocation. Obviously, as we're getting down, ticking down quickly closer to three times in addition to M and A and debt repayment, is there any other possibilities or considerations in terms of opportunistically adding shareholder value?
Speaker 2
Yes. I think at this point, we're going to continue to the pipeline as we think about M and A is very strong. And so the likely scenario is to be deployed through M and A. If for some reason those dried up and we weren't able to do anything, then clearly we would reassess and look for ways to increase shareholder value and other means. But I think right now M and A is the strong candidate for that.
Speaker 7
Understood. Thank you. Yeah. Thanks, Dan.
Speaker 5
Thank you.
Speaker 0
We have reached the end of the question and answer session, and this does conclude today's teleconference. May disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation, and have a great day.
Speaker 3
Thank you.