City of Minneapolis Emergency Communications Center Upgrades Public Safety Communications Solution; City Selects Computer-Aided Dispatch Solution from TriTech Software Systems.

SAN DIEGO -- TriTech Software Systems, the leading provider of integrated multi-agency public safety software solutions, today announced that the City of Minneapolis, Minnesota has selected its command and control solution, VisiCAD Command(TM), to replace their existing legacy computer-aided dispatch (CAD) system. In addition, the city also selected TriTech's mobile application, VisiNet Mobile to provide seamless communication from the CAD to field personnel. The city of Minneapolis, with a population of 382,616 and an area of 58.7 square miles, has selected TriTech as the CAD vendor of choice to support its Police (Minneapolis Police Department, Minneapolis Park Police, and University of Minnesota Police Department), Fire and EMS agencies.

After rigorous evaluation of various systems from several public safety vendors, city officials selected TriTech for its ability to provide a reliable, user friendly solution that will improve emergency services to the public, while enhancing dispatch operations and ensuring field personnel safety. In addition, the TriTech solution will address the interoperability challenge between different regional users, which is a critical issue for the city.

The city does not currently have the ability to share CAD data with adjacent communities, and sought a vendor that has experience implementing a solution that allows them to communicate with other jurisdictions, specifically in the case of a major emergency scenario. The multiple agencies are pleased with their current voice capabilities and now the TriTech solution will fill the data interoperability gap to provide a truly interoperable solution.

Several of the other vendors indicated they had the ability to implement a CAD-to CAD solution, however, only TriTech demonstrated their expertise through existing implementations. The Ministry of Health in Canada, which when complete will have 20 sites, currently has 14 active remote sites that are all interlinked with full CAD capabilities. The CAD-to-CAD solution in El Paso Teller County 911 Authority, Colorado handles emergency calls for nine different EMS/Fire and law enforcement agencies in various neighboring jurisdictions, New South Wales Ambulance in New Zealand has 4 remote sites. This depth of expertise was a decisive factor in the selection of TriTech.

"We are pleased to have the opportunity to work with TriTech Software Systems on this critically important project for our city," said John Dejung, Emergency Communications Director. "The city of Minneapolis needs a reliable, highly-integrated, user-friendly solution that will allow our dispatch and field personnel to easily access the information they need to ensure the safety of our citizens. We felt it was important to obtain a commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) solution that is easy to maintain, unlike our current, custom system, which has become challenging to sustain. We considered several possibilities, from updating our current system, to evaluating a variety of other CAD solutions. After careful consideration, we chose the CAD and Mobile solutions from TriTech because they best addressed our dispatch and field requirements. End-users were very involved in the analysis of the various solutions offered by other vendors, and the unanimous response pointed toward the easy-to-use, yet sophisticated functionality of TriTech's software suite.

It was clear to us that TriTech was the one vendor that provided an excellent solution for all our agencies--from law enforcement, to fire to EMS. In addition, we selected TriTech for its commitment to deliver a reliable solution with dedicated client support throughout the life of our system."

VisiCAD Command will replace the city's custom built CAD system that is more than 15 years old and lacks the modern capabilities of today's CAD systems. The current system is unable to recommend the closest unit to a call, as units are dispatched according to their last known location. The new system will provide Geographic Integrated System (GIS) and Automatic Vehicle Locator (AVL) functionality to ensure the closest emergency response unit is dispatched to minimize response times. This will also enhance mutual aid efforts with adjacent suburban neighborhoods.

VisiNet Mobile, TriTech's wireless mobile data solution, replaces the Police Department's stand alone system that is not integrated with the current CAD solution and introduces the Minneapolis Fire Department to a mobile data solution. TriTech's mobile solution seamlessly integrates with CAD and will provide field personnel with real-time incident details, integrated mapping capabilities, hazmat details and caution notes. Field personnel will be better informed before they arrive at the scene which enhances both personnel and public safety. VisiNet Mobile will provide each field unit with complete voiceless dispatch information to relieve the dispatcher from always being the point of contact for incident or unit information. Lastly, it will greatly facilitate and speed up the process of accessing crime information databases from local, state, and federal sources to further ensure personnel safety.

"We are very pleased that TriTech has been selected for its unmatched ability to provide a true multi-agency/multi-jurisdictional system that meets the requirements of the city of Minneapolis," said TriTech president and CEO Chris Maloney. "Our solutions clearly demonstrate the flexible and user-friendly features the emergency agencies within the city of Minneapolis need from a truly interoperable system.

Our feature-rich solution will provide all agencies with the assurance of enhanced response times and robust recommendations to emergency situations, through unparalleled access to critical information and streamlined operational efficiencies. All agencies will be able to operate on the same system and jointly respond to events without having to compromise their individual requirements. VisiNet Mobile will provide complete integration and functionality with the TriTech CAD solution and full messaging will be facilitated between other units and dispatch. In addition, workflow mapping is integrated with live GPS updates to provide exact location of the incident and the closest available units with complete routing instruction."

TriTech is also the prime contractor for the FormStream(TM) field reporting solution, provided by Patron Systems. The solution will enable the Minneapolis Police Department officers to generate automated field reports which will integrate with the TriTech solution and the city's law enforcement records management system.

About TriTech Software Systems

TriTech provides innovative, comprehensive public safety solutions for law enforcement, fire and EMS industries through its integrated, multi-agency suite of public safety applications. In addition to its award-winning, Computer-Aided Dispatch (CAD) product, VisiCAD Command, TriTech offers innovative Microsoft(R).NET -based products such as VisiNet Mobile, a wireless PC-based mobile fleet application that seamlessly extends CAD to in-vehicle laptop computers, VisiNet Fire RMS,(TM) a powerful NFIRS 5.0 -certified records tool that integrates with VisiCAD to provide enterprise level data collection, and VisiNet Law RMS,(TM) a robust workflow management, crime analysis, and crime reporting tool. The company has worldwide installations with more than 150 installations in the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom.