COMMISSION REPORT MACRO

RECOMMENDATION

It is recommended that the Commission approve the issuance of a purchase order to Victory Computer Inc. in the total amount of $2,568,659.40 (taxes included) for the supply of 1,467 controllers for the Surface Vehicle Automated Stop Announcement System (SVASAS).

FUNDING

Funds for this expenditure have been included in Project 2.3 Communications, under Surface Vehicle Automated Stop Announcement System, as set out on pages 369-371 Legislative Category, of the TTC 2006-2010 Capital Program as approved by City Council on December 12, 2005. It is now projected that the estimated final cost of this project will be $6,600,000, largely due to increased costs for the Global Positioning System and these additional costs have been included in the proposed 2007-2011 Capital Program.

BACKGROUND

SVASAS will provide a stand alone unit on each bus and streetcar that will make audio and video stop announcements. A GPS unit on the vehicle will record the position of the vehicle in relation to service stops and feed the data to an onboard controller. The controller selects the appropriate announcement for the approaching stop and transmits audio output to the public address system and visual output to an LED display that will be mounted at the front interior of the vehicle.

The Surface Vehicle Automatic Stop Announcement System (SVASAS) was designed to automatically play sound files to announce the surface stops for the visually impaired and display messages for the hearing impaired. The system uses a Global Positioning System (GPS) which passes coordinates to a mobile controller. An application in the controller interprets the coordinates and compares them to a database. The computer is connected to a Public Address (PA) system through an amplifier.

The requirements for the SVASAS system were outlined to the Commission on July 19, 2006 (at a total cost of $6,600,000,) and at that meeting, approval was given for the additional cost of $3,100,000.

The design for the SVASAS was performed by TTC staff and the various components and equipment were purchased for a group of 10 buses to perform a limited pilot program on the Bayview Route in late 2005. Staff worked with Victory Computers (Victory) to supply a number of prototype Controllers including 5 of the recommended versions to prove out the Commission’s design for the system. Staff stipulated the requirements and Victory assembled the units per staff’s instructions. The intent of the pilot was to test the hardware and software design and its reliability and TTC customer acceptance.

The initial testing of the prototype Controllers proved to be successful and Victory was awarded a Sole Source contract (approved by the CGM) for 75 Controllers to determine that the manufacturing quality of the Controllers does not deteriorate over large quantity buys and the quality remains consistent with the prototype units. Issuance of the Sole Source contract was required to expedite the delivery of the 75 units, allowing for a longer period of time to evaluate the expanded program and to finalize the specifications. Subsequent to the acceptable evaluation and finalization of the specifications, a competitive Request For Proposal (RFP) was issued to purchase an additional 1467 Controllers including the optional requirement of an additional 320 Controllers.

In addition a separate RFP for the GPS was issued that would transmit spatial (GPS) data to the Controllers, which exploit this information to play audio messages and display text to LED signs.

Surface Operations has committed to having the SVASAS rolled out to a significant amount of the surface fleet by the end of 2006. The full rollout will be completed in 2007.

The SVASAS Capital Project includes funding for 1547 Controllers, out of which the Commission has already purchased 80 Controllers. The Commission is in the process of adding an additional 320 buses to its existing fleet in 2007. The procurement of these buses has recently received full approval from City of Toronto Council and includes the costs for installation of SVASAS on these new buses, and the purchase of these additional optional controllers will be subject of a future Commission report.

DISCUSSION

Six companies were invited to submit Proposals in addition to the public advertisement on the TTC Web Site on August 9, 2006, out of which one company submitted a Proposal.

Victory Computer Inc. was the only company that submitted a Proposal. They have performed similar services for the Commission previously and their performance has been satisfactory. The price for the new Controllers is approximately 11% lower than the previous purchase. They did not take any exceptions or qualifications to the Commission’s Terms and Conditions and their proposal is considered commercially and technically acceptable.

Staff contacted the companies that did not submit a proposal to investigate the reasons why they did not bid. Clever Devices indicated that since their system contains both the Controllers and Global Positioning System (GPS) in one unit, they were unable to bid competitively on just the Controllers. Big City Pictures Inc. indicated that their Controller consists of a combination of Hardware and Software and since the Commission already has its own Software, they did not think that they could competitively bid. Compugen Systems Inc., Xwave Solutions Inc., Infostream Technologies Inc. and Dell Computer Corporation stated that this type of requirement is not in line with their expertise and therefore, they did not submit a proposal.

JUSTIFICATION

SVASAS will provide automated audio and visual stop announcements on buses and streetcars. The system will provide consistency in the announcement of surface stops, independent of Operator action.

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October 11, 2006

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