December 24, 1999

To: Policy and Finance Committee

From: Barry H. Gutteridge, Commissioner, Works and Emergency Services

Police Chief David Boothby

Subject: Integrated Fire and Police Radio Communications System

Six Month Status Report

Purpose:

To provide a semi-annual status report on the Integrated Fire and Police Radio Communications System as directed the Audit Committee at its meeting on May 25, 1999. The first of these status reports was tabled in June 1999.

Funding Sources, Financial Implications and Impact Statement:

The Integrated Fire and Police Radio Communications System was approved by Council at a cost not to exceed $34.5 Million. Funding for this project of $29.2 Million and $5.3 Million was included in the approved capital budgets of the Fire Service and Police Service, respectively. There are no funding implications associated with the presentation of this report.

Recommendations:

It is recommended that this report be received and forwarded to Community Services Committee for information.

Council Reference & Background:

At its meeting on May 25, 1999, the Audit Committee requested that the Commissioner, Works and Emergency Services report to the Policy and Finance Committee and Budget Committee every six months starting June 30, 1999 on the status of the Integrated Fire and Police Radio Communications System. These progress reports are to include information on changes to the final contract price for the system, scheduled completion date, progress of implementation, meeting of prescribed milestones and payments to Motorola Canada Inc., as well as any problems or delays encountered or anticipated.

Since the last status report the Radio Communications System Steering Committee has met three times on July 9^th, September 16^th, and December 15^th , 1999. The Steering Committee's purpose is to provide executive leadership throughout all stages of the project and is Co-Chaired by Tom Powell, Toronto Fire Services and Steven Reesor, Toronto Police Service. Other staff on the Committee are John Lock, Toronto Ambulance Service and Tom Denes Works and Emergency Services. Tony Veneziano, representing the City Audit Department, attends all steering committee meeting's in an advisory capacity and to ensure any financial or other issues are appropriately addressed.

Comments:

In December 1998, a contract was signed with Motorola Canada Inc., the supplier of the Fire/Police integrated radio communications system, at a cost up to $34.5 Million including taxes. In accordance with the contract, an initial payment of $2.7 Million was made upon contract signing and a final payment of $2.7 Million will be made at the end of the radio communications project following final acceptance of the system. A payment schedule, based on various prescribed milestones, forms the basis of future payments to Motorola.

Following the completion of the critical design review in August of 1999 and prior to factory acceptance in November, 1999 a revised equipment list and revised Motorola base price of $27,472,148.75 was established. The balance of the monies for this project are required for site development; the Fault Management system; the In Building & Subway/Path coverage; project staffing and the possible addition of more radio sites once coverage testing and analysis is complete. The remaining requirements referenced above will not necessarily be fully contracted through Motorola. Where appropriate, some of the requirements, that originally formed part of the contract, will be contracted outside of the Motorola contract, thereby eliminating the Motorola markup and resulting in savings of up to 30 percent.

Phase one of the project is the implementation of the radio communications system is the Central Zone. Toronto Fire Services will upgrade and combine the previous municipalities of Toronto, York and East York to an 800 MHz radio communications system and consolidate three existing communications centres into the new Fire communications centre at 4330 Dufferin Street. Toronto Police Services will convert District 2 and District 5 to 800 MHz trunking systems. The result of a technical radio coverage analysis for the central zone identified a possible reduction of the number of sites required to provide adequate coverage. The final number of sites and subsequent savings will be verified during radio coverage testing after system installation.

Phase two of the implementation of the radio communications system establishes a West, North and East Zone and networks the four zones together. Toronto Fire Services will upgrade the existing systems in Etobicoke, North York and Scarborough and consolidate the remaining three communications centres into the new main Fire communications centre at 4330 Dufferin Street.

Toronto Police Services will convert District 1, 3 and 4 to 800 MHz trunking systems.

Project working teams utilizing both Fire and Police personnel were involved in specific tasks that included:

· Finalization of radio coverage analysis for the all zones;

· A comprehensive redesign of the Fire Station alerting system;

· Finalization of the design of the vehicular repeater system for Fire;

· Facilities work re 4330 Dufferin and 703 Don Mills Rd;

· Dispatch Centre and Console design for 4330 Dufferin and 703 Don Mills Rd;

· New user equipment selection and early implementation in the South Zone;

· Tower site upgrades to accept the new equipment and antenna systems;

· Expansion of the Subway and Path radio system coverage;

· Smartzone system management training.

The contract for coverage in the subway and underground path was approved by the Police Services Board for funding from the Police capital allocation for this project and is now well underway.

Critical design for Phase one was completed and signed off on August 5, 1999.

Project staff from Fire and Police traveled to Schaumburg, Illinois to conduct factory acceptance testing on the first phase of the system. This included the 26 Fire dispatch terminals, the control central electronics equipment, system management terminals, equipment for the four South Zone sites and the Fire Station alerting equipment for the first 35 halls. The Fire Station alerting system has undergone a major redesign to insure proper user operation without negatively affecting the operation of the trunking system. Final software development of the Fire Station alerting system is scheduled to be completed by June of 2000. Factory acceptance was granted on November 12^th, 1999, and a $6,623,594.63 payment, which represents 30% of the revised Motorola base price, was made. Factory acceptance was the operational staging of the system components in the factory and a thorough review by Toronto Fire and Police personnel was performed to assure contract compliance and proper operation. A further 10% payment will be made following system acceptance of Phase one in November 2000.

A 50% payment will be made after factory acceptance of the final three zones in June of 2001. A 10% payment will be made following provisional acceptance of Phase two in July 2001. Provisional acceptance is given after the successful transition and acceptance of the majority of users to the system and the general day to day operation of the same.

The previous status report identified the most critical item at that time was the renovation work that has to be completed at the 4330 Dufferin St. location before the dispatch equipment can be installed. Our concerns proved valid and because of changes in the facilities scheduling, the space for the Fire dispatch centre and Police backup centre, which was scheduled for completion in March of 2000, is now slated for the end of October 2000. As a result, the phase one schedule is extended by 7 months and the phase two schedule, although still unchanged has lost flexibility and is at risk of encountering slippage. System acceptance of phase one is currently scheduled for November 2000. Phase two will be done concurrently, and is still on schedule to be completed in July 2001.

The equipment which was staged during factory acceptance has been shipped and will be installed permanently in all locations except 4330 Dufferin(space not ready). To lessen the impact of the schedule delays, we are planning to install the control equipment in a temporary location at 4330 Dufferin which will allow the radio system to be made operational for Police use, coverage verification and Fire training by May of 2000.

Appended to this report is a chart and attached narrative that illustrates the progress of the project up to this time.

Conclusions:

We are forecasting that there will be no changes to the final project cost for the radio communications system. Possible savings due to optimization of system performance will allow us to strive to achieve the best cost performance ratio. Implementation for phase one has slipped but the phase two completion date of June, 2001 remains on schedule according to Motorola. We feel that Motorola is overly optimistic and that there is a risk of slippage to the end of the year 2001. The "Critical Design Review" milestone and the phase one Factory Acceptance Milestone have been completed. The most critical item at this time is still the facilities work that has to be completed at the 4330 Dufferin St. location before dispatch equipment can be installed.

Contact Names:

Alan Speed

Fire Chief, Fire Services

Barry H. Gutteridge

Commissioner, Works and Emergency Services

David Boothby

Police Chief

MT/mm

List of Attachments:

Integrated Radio Communications Project Schedule Summary

INTEGRATED RADIO COMMUNICATIONS PROJECT

SCHEDULE SUMMARY

December 1999