Public safety software suites

Published: February 18, 2014

Justice/Public Safety & Homeland Security

This blog post was originally posted on The IJIS Factor:

Public safety software suites continue to be a hot area for procurement, as many police, sheriff, fire and other public safety departments look to integrated systems that can be provided by one vendor. Just recently, the state of Delaware entered into a contract with New World Systems Corporation for a full public safety suite of services including computer-aided dispatch (CAD), a records management system (RMS), and mobile data terminals/computers (MDT/MDC). The contract is valued at $6.1 million and set to expire in 2019.

 

The most popular CAD vendors in the market, based on the GovWin IQ database, are Motorola, Tiburon and Intergraph, with the average contract length being 6-8 years. Most contracts have a one-year base term for installation, with additional maintenance/renewal options. Contract values vary depending on what forms of integration are included. Base costs tend to be low if only for a CAD system, while costs increase with integrated components such as automatic vehicle location (AVL), field-based reporting (FBR), global positioning systems (GPS) and geospatial information systems (GIS).

 

For example, Sacramento County, Calif., awarded a contract to Versaterm Inc. for $2.8 million to provide CAD and MDT software with related project management, implementation, installation, and training services. Meanwhile, the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles’ turnkey public safety software solution project was awarded to CTS America for $30 million. The suite includes more integration components (CAD, MDC, FBR, and RMS), which results in a higher contract value.

 

Montgomery County, Md., released a request for proposals (RFP) for a public safety systems modernization (PSSM) and computer-aided dispatch modernization in April 2013. The county is looking to replace its existing Northrop Grumman CAD system and acquire a high-availability system that can support next generation 911 (NG911). The county is looking for a vendor to provide a system integrated with GPS, AVL and GIS. The county may elect to implement the vendor’s RMS in the future, but is not a requirement. The award for this project is still pending.

 

In February 2011, the city of Alexandria, Va., released an RFP for design, implementation and support of a CAD system for law enforcement and fire/EMS, with an integrated mobile data client, law enforcement records management system, automated field reporting system, fire records management system, and electronic patient care reporting (ePCR) system. The city’s vision is to acquire a robust system that best meets its functional, technical and integration requirements in a cost-effective manner. In 2013, the city awarded its CAD and RMS replacement project to Tritech Software Systems. The contract is valued at $4.7 million for 15 months.

 

 

Deltek has highlighted these top CAD opportunities in the chart below:

 

Again, computer-aided dispatch systems, along with E911/NG911 and records management (AVL, GIS) are often sold as public safety suites, in which vendors sell all technology pieces together in order to have full integration. It is wise for vendors to find out what systems agencies are working on to see what other systems they might need in the future as an add-on component. More entities are moving toward purchasing these suites to reduce the cost and work to solicit a separate vendor for different aspects of a public safety system. Allocating funds toward one contract/vendor to provide a myriad of services will allow departments to budget properly and get services in place faster without being bogged down with budgetary restrictions, applying for grants, and other funding issues.

 

Agencies are even beginning to look across departments and starting to include components like jail management systems (JMS) in their suites; therefore, justice/correctional integration may be something to consider for the future. For example, a police department’s CAD/RMS may be integrated with a court’s case management system (CCMS), providing full information on an offender from time of arrest, to sentencing and beyond.

 

GovWin IQ subscribers can read further about these projects in the provided links. Non-subscribers can gain access with a GovWin IQ free trial.