information technology sub-committee EXTRACT OF DRAFT Minutes 7 17 may 2010

sous-Comité de la technologie de l’information EXTRAITE DE L’ÉBAUCHE DU Procès-verbal 7 le 17 mai 2010

TRANSIT SERVICES TECHNOLOGY ROADMAP

FEUILLE DE ROUTE TECHNOLOGIQUE DES SERVICES DE TRANSPORT EN COMMUN

ACS2010-COS-ITS-0011

David Johnston, Manager, Business Technology Architecture provided a PowerPoint presentation, a copy of which is held on file. He was accompanied by Steve Nicolaiff, Technology Architect and Alain Mercier, General Manager, Transit Services. His presentation provided an overview of the entire Transit technology picture, identifying relationships, timelines and duration of planned improvements for each of the eight identified platforms. He noted the next steps are to: re-profile Transit’s Capital program in the “10 Year Tactical Plan”; reset the envelope for Budget 2011 and beyond; align existing budgets previously approved by Council within the proposed Roadmap structure; and implement new governance processes to maintain and update the Roadmap. Mr. Johnston requested the sub-committee’s feedback.

Vice-Chair Desroches suggested this exercise is about putting IT and OC Transpo matters in order, and that it stems from discomfort that some Members of Council had with the roll-out of the automated call system and the problems that ensued. He said it would help rationalize what the City needs from an IT perspective and OC Transpo, and would facilitate working in an open and transparent way to make those decisions and acquisitions. Mr. Mercier agreed, remarking that it allows both OC Transpo and Council the chance to demystify matters, i.e. to clearly define goals and strategies to achieve them and provide a transparent tool for evaluation and consideration of the process. He added that the Roadmap gives both Transit and Members of Council some understanding of how to make the move from the current situation to the desired outcome in a world where the market for transit products, in terms of IT solutions for transit activities, has evolved tremendously. He said this would equate to a significant risk reduction for the City because City staff could leverage solutions that have been hardened and developed by hundreds of other transit systems in North America.

Vice-Chair Desroches questioned how confident staff are that they can adhere to at least the fundamentals of plans agreed to for any future technology, given that technology will continue to evolve and may do so over the life of a contract, as happened in the past. Mr. Mercier replied that from a Transit delivery perspective, staff has to clearly define customer service objectives so that once a direction is set the execution phase must be considered from a longer term view. He noted the transit industry is huge and invests billions of dollars in technology, and staff’s goal is to leverage that existing knowledge and look for best practices to pursue. Vice-Chair Desroches stressed the importance of adhering to approved plans and budgets and not being swayed to add minor improvements as technology evolves.

The Councillor noted the report identifies a ballpark budget for the coming years and the anticipated payback time, and he questioned the City’s ability to prioritize that within the Roadmap. For example, he suggested that priorities should be security and improvements to customer service, but he noted staff might see other issues as priority. Mr. Mercier responded that from an internal Transit perspective, the plan includes the ability to move ahead with many things at once. He noted it has been a joint exercise between IT Services and Transit Services, and although there are some things Transit would prefer to move ahead with first, IT has indicated that is not possible due to infrastructure needs, which has been reflected in the Roadmap.

Vice-Chair Desroches pointed out that the Roadmap lays out a five-year investment plan of more than $58 M, of which $27 M is intended to be spent in 2010. He thought it might be a bit ambitious to try to launch that much in one year and he questioned when the discussion would occur about the feasibility of implementation of the plan as presented. Mr. Johnston replied that the bulk of investment falls into three areas: Next Stop Announcement (NSA), Smartcard fare payment, and preparing the platform on the bus to support NSA. The plan defines those as priorities. Recognizing that, he said, the other initiatives indicated by Transit Services in past as desired investments will be moved off in queue. He noted some further functional reviews and analyses in key platforms would be conducted so the plan could be refined as it moves forward. He added there are always opportunities to prioritize but the impact of prioritization in those three areas is something that would have to be considered in light of agreements in place with the Province. He suggested that reprioritization could occur on an annual basis, either by way of recommendations during the budget process or through the IT-Subcommittee, Transit Committee and Council.

The Vice-Chair expressed support for the plan and weeding out unneeded systems, noting it is all subject to debate at Council. Noting that one of the Sub-committee’s objectives is to improve transparency and dialogue with suppliers to make them aware of the City’s IT goals and help them prepare for procurement processes, he asked whether staff agree that the Roadmap would fit in with that objective. Mr. Johnston concurred.

Councillor El-Chantiry remarked that technology requirements have historically taken a back seat in terms of previous City budgets and he inquired whether staff have prepared a business case and presentation plan to bring to Council in advance of the budget process to garner support for the investments laid out in the Roadmap. Mr. Johnston commented that one of the reasons technology investments have not been well supported in the past is because Council has never had the opportunity to see the value of some of the technology investments and their return on investment, in various ways, to the Corporation. He thought that bringing that information forward would help in terms of budget decisions. He added it will also be helpful for Council as staff moves forward with expanding this technology roadmap concept into other departments, as Council will then be able to see the entire technology picture of the City.

In further response to the Councillor, Mr. Johnston said staff would appreciate the opportunity to work with IT Sub-committee members on developing a business case for Council.

Mr. Michaud cautioned that although there has been a great deal of discussion about return on investment for technology projects, the return cannot always be quantified in terms of money. He noted some projects offer value to residents and in some cases may be seen as an investment or an expense. He said staff’s goal is to provide all possible information, including both hard returns on investment and value to residents, so that Council can make informed decisions.

Councillor Chiarelli stated it will be hard to communicate to Council the value of some projects given that the City has been putting money into certain ones for more than a decade and is still not actually using them. Specifically he was referring to Smartcard technology, noting the City has been allocating funding to it since 1997. Furthermore, he said that what is planned for use in Ottawa is not really a smart card but rather is a ‘glorified plastic bus pass’, and other municipalities will quickly advance beyond Ottawa in that regard. He noted that Presto is starting to look at ways to expand the Presto card capacity so it can accommodate more than buses and he questioned whether, since the City has not started using any form of the Presto card yet, Ottawa could be used as a pilot site for a multi-use card.

Mr. Mercier responded, noting he is a member of the Executive Committee of Presto, that there are two main areas under consideration by Presto– one is the expanded use of the card through other services, and the second is the Open Fare Payment model. Expanded use is currently in a deployment phase and takes precedence.

When asked about the areas of deployment, Mr. Mercier responded that out of the 11 jurisdictions, there are four where it has been deployed (Oakville, parts of the Toronto Transit Commission, GoTransit, Brampton and two other cities are coming online). Ottawa is in the second phase of development; its pass products are different and not being applied necessarily in other cities of the GTA. He explained the Open Fare Payment model, which could be used for any application and could utilize various forms of payment, including credit card, would not be implemented for three to four years. He noted it is currently being tested in New York City and similar areas. He added that Smartcards in the Presto system will evolve over the next four to five years, which he said is a normal evolution of this kind of technology, and that smart phones would likely be the final stage of evolution five to ten years from now.

In response to Councillor Chiarelli’s question, Mr. Mercier said he could inquire if Presto would be willing to use Ottawa in the pilot for the multi-use card, if given direction to do so.

Councillor Chiarelli conjectured that the Provincial government has to request that it expand or at least provide money for it to do so. Mr. Mercier replied that the governance structure is such that the member organizations participate in the development of expanded scope and brings money forward to support recommendations. If government support and funding for that development were desired, a separate application to the provincial government to top up or assist with investment would be required.

The Councillor questioned the level at which the Presto card functions, suggesting it is not really a smart card because it only stores an individual’s identification number and must then link to the sites that actually have the personal information. Mr. Mercier asserted that the card is intelligent and interactive but he offered to get back to Councillor Chiarelli with the level of detail that he requested.

Chair Wilkinson noted that staff would be bringing back a more detailed report on this subject before the end of the year and she felt that might be the appropriate time to deal with Councillor Chiarelli’s suggestion. Mr. Michaud agreed, cautioning that taking the leading role on something does not always work out for the best; however, he felt the matter could be investigated further in the meantime.

Chair Wilkinson, on behalf of the Sub-committee, directed that Mr. Mercier have discussions with Presto during his meetings with them on how Ottawa could be used as one of the first municipalities to test the multi-use card and that he report back to the Sub-committee. Mr. Mercier agreed.

In response to Chair Wilkinson’s questions about budget, Mr. Mercier provided the following clarifications:

· He has met with Finance staff on the second quarter report that will go to Transit Committee; the goal will be to present the current state of all IT related projects for OC Transpo compressed into the new workplan, as presented here, and to provide the alignment of capital budgets from previous to current. Staff will present recommendations at that time as to whether to merge, align, or cancel certain projects.

· In principle, a project does not commence if there are elements of it that have not yet received budget approval. There are new items within the roadmap on the maintenance side that are unbudgeted that will require recommendation to the Transit Committee in terms of whether to cancel other work to prioritize where there is short-term efficiency savings.

· In terms of budget planning and taxation, Mr. Mercier suggested those decisions would be best left to discussion during the 2011 budget debate and beyond.

Mr. Johnston further clarified that the projects identified in the roadmap indicate the fully loaded project costs as staff estimates them, and are shown as close to the year that staff anticipates the money would be expended. He added there will likely be some amount of work carried over to a subsequent year, as frequently happens. Furthermore, he stated that the ten-year tactical plan update and summary profiling of capital projects that Mr. Mercier referred to will help ensure, to the extent that is possible, the capital account and the funding authority is matched to the expenditure plan.

Chair Wilkinson pointed out that this roadmap was not available at the time of the IT Vendor Information Session in February and she asked Mr. Michaud to consider whether another should be planned again soon to provide this update on IT Transit issues. Mr. Michaud indicated the next session is planned for early winter and will demonstrate progress to date and he added if there are components that can be addressed to a very wide audience they will be included at that time. He noted that some of this technology is very specialized to the transit industry and it may require a more focused information session. The Chair agreed that some of the companies in the Ottawa area might not be prime contenders, but she pointed out they might be a component of a number of different companies coming together, which is often the case. She asked Mr. Michaud to consider how to make local vendors aware of this information in order to uphold the City’s commitment to keep them informed.

The committee received the report, noted the following direction to staff and approved the report recommendation, as follows.

Direction to Staff

That Mr. Mercier have discussions with Presto on how Ottawa could be used as one of the first municipalities to test the multi-use card and that he report back to the IT Sub-committee.

That the Information Technology Sub-Committee recommend that the Transit Services Committee recommend that Council approve the Transit Services Technology Roadmap attached as Document 1.

CARRIED