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REPORT RAPPORT |
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REPORT RAPPORT |
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DATE: |
13 April
2005 |
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TO: |
Executive Director, Ottawa Police Services
Board |
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FROM: |
Director
General, Ottawa Police Service |
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SUBJECT: |
ELECTRONIC TICKETING SYSTEM |
RECOMMENDATION
On 22 November 2004, the Ottawa Police Services
Board reviewed a report outlining the business case for an electronic ticketing
system and approved the creation of a new capital project in the amount of $1.2
million to implement it. Funding for
the project came from the unspent balances of existing capital projects. No new funding was requested.
There is a strong need for this technology
within the Ottawa Police Service. The
current approach to issuing and processing Provincial Offence Notices (PONs) is
a paper-intensive, highly manual process with the same data being entered at
several different points into different systems. The additional sworn officer staffing in the Traffic Enforcement
Section, combined with the organization-wide emphasis on traffic safety, has
resulted in a sizeable increase in the number of PONs issued by the OPS. This increased volume has put significant
pressure on the existing process and is diverting resources from key support
functions. A technology solution, which
allows data to be entered once and captured electronically, is one of the key
ways to make this process more efficient.
Capturing PON data in an electronic format will
also help the other partners who adjudicate and administer these tickets. The City of Ottawa and the Ministry of the
Attorney General are key users of the PON data and now must rely on a
cumbersome, hard copy format to play their part in this process. Electronic data transfer will provide a
platform from which other processing and storage solutions can be built, as
time and resources permit.
The OPS vision for electronic ticketing is a
simple one:
To achieve this vision, the e-ticketing
software application will be deployed to two separate streams of new
technology, in recognition of the fact that an estimated 20% of all PONs are
issued by traffic officers on motorcycles:
·
Stream
1 – Patrol Vehicles: The e-ticketing software application is deployed to an upgraded
wireless laptop in 155 patrol vehicles. A swipe card reader and thermal printer are installed in the
patrol vehicle.
·
Stream
2 - Motorcycles: The e-ticketing software solution is
deployed to a handheld unit, with built-in thermal printers, for 41
traffic officers on motorcycles.
A Project Team comprised of sworn and civilian
members was struck to undertake this challenging work. At the peak of the project, twelve people
will be working on implementation. Mr.
Michael Parsche has been contracted as the Senior Project Manager for the
project. Staff Sergeant Rock Lavigne
has assumed a lead role on the project to ensure that the operational needs of
the organization are met as implementation proceeds. Most of the Team members will need to be backfilled while they
are assigned to the project, with any related staffing costs absorbed by the
project budget.
Mr. Parsche is responsible for keeping all of
the relevant OPS external partners up-to-date on the status of the
project. The project team is working
very closely with the City of Ottawa’s Court Office and the Provincial Offences
Services Division. Any changes made to
the ticketing process are closely reviewed with them. As well, the Ministry of the Attorney General and local Justice
of the Peace offices are consulted as required by the team.
DISCUSSION
The OPS Electronic Ticketing Project Team, in
consultation with traffic officers and Information Technology staff, prepared
specifications for this system. In
consultation with the City of Ottawa Supply Management Division, a Request for
Proposal (RFP) was developed to seek proposals and cost quotes from vendors of
electronic ticketing systems. An RFP
entitled “Electronic Ticketing System” was advertised on the MERX bid
distribution system with a due date of 7 March 2005.
The overall evaluation and awarding process
consisted of six stages, or gates:
1.
Compliance
with mandatory requirements - proposals were reviewed against a set of
mandatory criteria resulting in either a pass or fail mark;
2.
Evaluation
of rates (technical) requirements - proposals that passed Stage 1 were reviewed
against a set of rated criteria resulting in a weighted score out of 75
possible points;
3.
Evaluation
of the financial proposals – the financial proposals of firms participating in
Stage 2 were then opened and reviewed.
Points were assigned based on standard deviation with the lowest bid
receiving the maximum of 25 points;
4.
Ranking
of proponents (short-listing) – proponent’s technical and financial scores were
tallied, and short-listed proponents were eligible to proceed to Stage 5;
5.
Proof
of system demonstration for the short-listed proponents – short-listed
proponents were invited to provide a one-day demonstration of their product at
OPS facilities;
6.
Awarding
of the contract – if the Police Services Board provides approval, the
implementation details of their contract will be finalized by Supply Management
and the OPS for conveyance to Advanced Public Safety Systems, Inc.
The
evaluation methodology and the basis of selection process set out in the RFP
was constructed to ensure that: a) all proponents would be fairly and equitably
evaluated against the RFP’s evaluation criteria, and b) the proponent offering
the overall best value electronic ticketing system solution would be selected
for contract finalization at the end of Stage 5.
Proposals
were received from the three vendors noted:
In Stages 1 and 2, OPS and City Supply
Management staff evaluated the proponents’ written submissions to determine the
scores for the mandatory and rated requirements. At Stage 1, it was determined that the proposal from Parksmart
was non-compliant with the mandatory requirements and was thus disqualified
from further consideration. Groupe
Techna Inc. and Advanced Public Safety, Inc. were compliant with the RFP’s
stated mandatory requirements and were eligible to proceed to Stage 2.
The rated requirements evaluated in Stage 2
included:
Upon
completion of Stage 2, the financial proposals from Groupe Techna and Advanced
Public Safety were opened, verified and scored. The RFP provided an opportunity for all proponents to quote
pricing on three possible system deployment options. The OPS has selected Option 3 as the best deployment plan. The financial totals for Groupe Technca and
Advanced Public Safety were (before taxes) $799,162.17 (Groupe Techna) and
$638,209 (Advanced Public Safety).
The
cumulative scoring for Stages 2 and 3 were tallied. As a result, both APS and Groupe Techna were invited to
demonstrate their proposed Electronic Ticketing Systems to OPS (Stage 5). These “Proof of System” demonstrations
occurred during the week of 14 to 18 March 2005 at the OPS police facility at
10th Line Road. The
demonstration permitted the OPS to validate and confirm the written responses
from the proponents. The Stage 5
evaluation team consisted of experienced traffic officers and managers, as well
as experienced technical and implementation staff.
At the
conclusion of Stage 5, a final summation and verification of the scoring for
both proponents was completed and is presented below:
|
Summary
Scoring |
Maximum Evaluation Points |
Advanced Public Safety |
Groupe Techna Inc |
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Sub-Total
of Rated Requirements |
75.0 |
57.7 |
46.5 |
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|
Financial
Proposal (rated by standard deviation) |
25.0 |
25.0 |
18.7 |
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GRAND
TOTAL |
100.0 |
82.7 |
65.2 |
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Advanced Public Safety attained the highest
overall score (technical and financial).
Staff are recommending that the OPS proceed to finalize a contract with
Advanced Public Safety, Inc. for the deployment of an electronic ticketing
system. Advanced Public Safety, in
addition to attaining the highest overall evaluation (technical and financial),
also submitted the lowest cost solution.
Advanced Public Safety confirmed agreement in
its proposal to accept without qualification all of the RFP’s special
provisions, terms and conditions. The
final contract will include a reference to the contents of the RFP and APS
proposals. It will additionally include
all pertinent software licensing agreements for the software offered by APS as
well as finalizing a contract implementation and payment schedule. These documents will be incorporated into
the City’s confirmation purchase order.
Costs
Capital costs for the purchase, installation
and integration of necessary and sufficient equipment is listed in the
following table. All amounts include
applicable taxes. These amounts are in
keeping with the estimates tabled with the business case in November 2004.
|
Item |
Cost |
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45 handheld devices |
$101,880 |
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192 thermal printers |
213,888 |
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205 ETS client software licenses |
117,090 |
|
ETS server software license |
27,880 |
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Implementation services |
27,734 |
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Hardware and software documentation |
2,073 |
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First
year maintenance |
32,343 |
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Total |
$522,888 |
Operating
funds for support and maintenance are listed in the following table. All amounts include applicable taxes.
|
Item |
Cost |
|
First
year (Included in the initial contract) |
$0 |
|
Second
year |
$32,343 |
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Third
year |
$32,343 |
Other
Considerations
Advanced Public Safety has deployed its
technologies to over 250 law enforcement agencies in the United States. It is recognized as a major vendor in the
electronic ticketing market and has built a loyal customer base.
Public
consultation is not required.
Funding for this purchase has been identified
and is provided for Capital Project #903138.
Approved Budget to
Date $ 1,200,000
Total Paid and Committed 181,205
Balance Available 1,018,795
This Request: 601,321 [$522,888 plus taxes]
Remaining Balance 417,474
The remaining balance of the Capital project
has been allocated as follows:
Infrastructure hardware and software $110,000
Project management
75,000
Implementation
Team
232,474
Total
417,474
In 2006,
the budget will need to be adjusted to reflect the warranty and maintenance
costs of $32,343. This change will be reflected in the 2006 budget
proposal.
Implementation
of the recommended option for electronic ticketing will be a challenging
project for the Ottawa Police Service.
The investment is a timely one in light of the organization’s increased
focus on traffic enforcement initiatives.
It is key that the Service demonstrates that it can achieve efficiency
gains, and this application is one way to showcase such an achievement to the
public. The recommended vendor is an
experienced partner that will play an important role in the success of this
project.
I concur
with the recommendation:
_________________________________________
Glen Ford
Manager,
Supply Management Division
City of
Ottawa
_________________________________________
Debra
Frazer
Director
General
_________________________________________
Vince Bevan
Chief of
Police
