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HomeMy WebLinkAboutStaff Report 139-06TO: City of Palo Alto C ty Manager Report HONORABLE CITY COUNCIL 4 FROM:CITY MANAGER DEPARTMENT:ADMINISTRATIVE SERVICES/IT DATE:FEBRUARY 6, 2006 CMR: 139:06 SUBJECT:REQUEST FOR APPROVAL OF PARTICIPATION IN A WIRELESS- BASED AUTOMATIC VEHICLE LOCATION TRIAL IN THE CALIFORNIA AVENUE CORRIDOR RECOMMENDATION Staff recommends that Council authorize the Mayor to approve the City’s participation in a wireless-based Automatic Vehicle Location tria! in the California Avenue corrider. BACKGROUND In July 2005, the City was approached by representatives of Intel Corporation and SAP regarding the possibility of establishing a trial application for Automatic Vehicle Location (AVL), using Wi-Fi (wireless fidelity, a I.E.E.E. standard) technology. During a series of subsequent meetings, an application and geographic area were selected for a trial. The geographic area for the trial will be a tvv-o-mile area surrounding the California Avenue corridor. DISCUSSION The trial is designed to automatically track ten Fire safety vehicles. The City’s Geographic Information System (GIS) will be used to display tracking information. Some of the metrics associated with this trial are: 1.Monitoring the response time to dispatch vehicles once an emergency call is received. 2.Time taken to arrive at the scene of the emergency event. 3.Feasibility of such a system for future applications, e.g. SAP applications. A Wi-Fi network will be installed in the California Avenue corridor to support the AVL. During discussions with public safety staff,, a request to expand the area was made. Expanding the area would enhance the ability to realistically track response times. Tracking in the expanded area beyond the California Avenue corridor will be accomplished using cellular technology. The trial is scheduled to last for 30-60 days. There will be no obligation on the part of the City to continue its involvement following the 30-60 day trial period. Participation was acknowledged and endorsed by the Loca! International Association of Fire Fighters (IAFF) # 1319. The City Attorney’s Office has been involved in the review of the City’s participation in the project. CMR:139:06 Page 1 of 2 The project will provide valuable, practical experience with an application utilizing tba’ee significant technologies, Wi-Fi, SAP and GIS. It is hoped that experience in this project will enable staff to evaluate future implementation of similar technologies for application in the City and to determine any possible improvements that can be made to field operations. RESOURCE IMPACT Staff support for the CAD and GIS will be required from the Information Technology Division. The City’s CAD and GIS will be used to display/monitor the tracking of selected vehicles. Utilities Electric Operations has been asked to provide support for the physical installation of the Wi-Fi components in the California Avenue corridor. Utilities Engineering work to install Wi-Fi equipment on fire vehicles will be minimal, as power can be provided via a 12-volt cigarette lighter outlet and the antem~a can be installed via magnetic mounts. Expenses and fees associated with the installation of equipment on street lights will be billed by Utilities to Intel/SAP. Information Technology and Public Works Equipment Management Group time and labor is minimal. POLICY IMPLICATIONS This agreement does not represent any change to existing City policies. ENVIRONMENTAL REVIEW Approval of this agreement does not constitute a project under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA); therefore, no environmental assessment is required. PREPARED BY: (GLENN E. LOO Chief4nformation Officer APPROVED BY: CITY MANAGER APPROVAL: EMILY HARRISON Assistant City Manager ATTACHMENTS Attachment A: Project proposal CMR: 139:06 Page 2 of 2 ATTACHMENT A SAP-lntel Digital Communities Pilot Proposal City of Palo Alto Background Municipalities worldwide are improving city services for both their citizens and employees and helping close the digital divide by deploying innovative solutions like Automatic Vehicle Location, electronic parking meter reading, and automating building permits and inspection processes. The first step in this process is usually setting up a prototype of these services which involves setting up wireless networks, installing remote sensors/tags, and integrating the system to existing computer systems and software already owned by these municipalities. Automatic Vehicle Location Proposal This is a proposal for a test run of innovative applications running on top of a municipal WiFi mesh network in the City of Palo Alto. The first application to be tested will be an Automatic Vehicle Location (AVL) system for Palo Alto police and fire department vehicles. The system will be integrated with the existing computer-aided vehicle dispatching (CAD) system of city fleets to improve incident response. Emergency personnel will be able to view the location of any vehicle at a given instant, displayed on a map of the section of the city. They will also be provided with the event information and location of nearby vehicles. Our goal would be to ultimately reduce the response time by allowing for a better choice of response vehicles. Project Plan The implementation will involve: Setting up a wireless (WiFi mesh) network in Palo Alto (in the target coverage area - Fig 1), ¯Identifying and equipping a set of police and fire vehicles for vehicle location tracking, , Deploying the SAP AVL application and integating it into the current dispatch workflow, Collecting vehicle location information and analyzing the response time of the vehicles. The test region will be a pre-defined area around California Avenue. 10 vehicles will be tracked initially. The test will begin in November, and will run through December. During this period, vehicle location data will be collected and stored for analysis. The metrics to measure the performance of the system will consist of: Response time to dispatch vehicles once an emergency call is received, Time taken to a-rive at the scene of the emergency event, and Ease of use for the personnel. Resources Required The following resources will be required from the city of Palo Alto: Personnel from the information technology (IT) department of the city to help with the interface to the CAD system and the geographical information system (GIS), Support for installation of wireless access points on city structures including buildings and light poles and helping provide internet connectivity for the same, ® 10 police/fire vehicles available for testing for a duration sufficient for data collection, and ,~ GIS maps of the city. The resources will come at no incremental cost to the city. Benefits The AVL system will improve the response time of public safety personnel by: Displaying current vehicle location and status to dispatch personnel, ,, Enabling quicker decisions on the type of vehicles to be dispatched, and o Enabling analysis of incident history and travel route information. This implementation will also further increase Palo Alto’s expertise in the area, possibly bringing along opportunities to supply services to nearby cities. Fig 1. Target coverage area