Denver has failed to enforce its red-light camera contract, collecting the $75 fines but not collecting the data necessary to determine whether the program actually is reducing red-light running.

The contractor, Redflex Traffic Systems of Scottsdale, Ariz., hasn't submitted a single page of the mountains of data the contract requires since the cameras went live last summer, including statistics that would disclose whether it must reimburse money to Denver for system failures.

The company also hasn't lived up to requirements for support staffing, including a Denver-based representative to attend to problems. Nor has it turned in required maintenance reports or equipment certifications.

On the other hand, the Denver Police Department failed to demand any of the required reports until a Rocky Open Records Act request revealed there weren't any to be found.

More than 11,200 tickets were mailed out through November.

Denver police officials in charge of the program refused to be interviewed by the Rocky about the problems; Redflex failed to respond to several interview requests and written questions.

Police Division Chief David Quinones wrote a letter to Redflex last month, after the Rocky's request revealed the lack of reporting, demanding that Redflex submit documentation by today.

The raw data that is available lends credence to standard traffic engineering practice outside Denver that increasing yellow-light timing reduces red-light running.

After stories in the Rocky last spring disclosed that Denver uses the legal minimum three seconds of yellow, despite an engineering formula calling for more, the city agreed to add time at all four camera locations.

According to police data through November, at three of the locations where the yellow was boosted to four or five seconds, a daily average of nine, 10 and 16 tickets are issued. That's significantly less than Redflex studies at those locations last year, when the yellows were three seconds. Redflex had counted up to 125 violations over a 12-hour period.

But at the fourth location, eastbound Sixth Avenue at Lincoln Street, Denver added only a half-second of yellow time, for 31/2 seconds. That camera has caught an average of 53 violators a day.

Denver police have summoned Redflex to a meeting next week. In his letter, Quinones held the contract renewal over the company's head. The one-year contract expires Feb. 15.

"While Denver has the option to renew the agreement for additional terms, Redflex's performance to date has raised several significant concerns," Quinones wrote. "Our legal counsel will be attending the meeting with us."

It is impossible to determine whether Denver's four cameras are reducing red-light running without having basic data such as total traffic counts. The contract requires Redflex to submit periodic reports but there hasn't been a single one since the first camera started to issue tickets nearly six months ago.

Denver pays Redflex nearly $32,000 a month to operate the four cameras. But Redflex is supposed to reimburse Denver $25 every time it fails to photograph all but 2 percent of detected violations. So far, the company hasn't provided data that would allow Denver to determine whether it's owed any money from Redflex.

Quinones also demanded Redflex give Denver Internet access to live video and still images as required in the contract. Poor-quality images were responsible for Denver missing violations and at least one court challenge. Redflex had to install more equipment after the system went live to address the problem.

Alex Plotkin, 30, of Denver, beat a ticket in August when a judge agreed the photo image wasn't clear enough. The judge didn't have a high-resolution monitor in the courtroom to view a clearer image.

"The thing the judge cared about was the picture the city provided to me was unusable," Plotkin said. "The supervisor kept claiming that on the Web site there is a higher-quality picture, but the judge did not have a high- resolution monitor on his desk."