City of Toronto Wins 2005 BE Award; Toronto Water Integrated Network Skeletonization Named Top Project in ''Geospatial: Public Works'' Category.

EXTON, Pa. -- The City of Toronto, Ontario, Canada, has won a 2005 BE Award for its Toronto Water Integrated Network Skeletonization project. The award category was "Geospatial: Public Works."

The BE Awards of Excellence, which are selected by an independent jury of industry experts and presented at an evening ceremony during the annual BE Conference (www.be.org), honor the extraordinary work of Bentley users improving the world's infrastructure. These projects set benchmarks for their industries, and showcase the imagination and technical mastery of the organizations that created them.

From a water model used by engineering and maintenance, the City of Toronto automatically generated a twin model for use by its asset management group. The automation saved the city a great deal of money. As Bob Gaspirc, manager of mapping services for the city, explains, "By enabling us to automatically skeletonize our complex water network from a high level of detail to less granular detail, WaterGEMS allowed us to bridge the data needs of two different user groups, while saving the city over $1 million Canadian."

The City of Toronto's water network includes more than 3,500 miles of water mains, more than 65,000 water valves, almost 42,000 hydrants, and 450,000 service connections. The Survey & Mapping Unit of the city's Technical Services Division maintains an as-built mapping environment that emulates this real-world network using MicroStation GeoGraphics and Bentley Water.

While the detailed network data was ideal for the needs of engineering and maintenance crews, it posed problems for the city's asset management group, which uses the data to model the water network and manage the capital work plan. The increased number of graphic elements and database records required to maintain the physical water network's level of detail added complexity to the asset management group's work. In fact, over time, this complexity threatened to disable all asset management and capital planning activities.

The answer was to create a twin water network with the lower level of detail required for the business of asset management. The twin would be created using a process called skeletonization, in which only those parts of the water network that have a significant impact on system behavior are selected for inclusion in the water distribution model. The cost of this was initially estimated by Toronto to be $600,000 Canadian, with additional downstream maintenance costs of $500,000 Canadian over a 10-year period.

However, Bentley offered the city an alternative solution that was much easier to implement and administer than other approaches - all at a small fraction of the cost. With the WaterGEMS Skelebrator module from Bentley's Haestad Methods product line, the city was able to automatically generate a separate data set to support the business processes of the asset management group. While the physical network contains 307,956 pipes, the new asset management network model contains 76,989 pipes - one quarter the complexity.

In addition to providing a bridge between two different data models, two different users, and two different businesses, Bentley technology offered the City of Toronto a process that is automated, repeatable, and sustainable. The solution is also scalable and flexible, allowing skeletonization for additional users with different needs.

About Toronto Water and the City of Toronto

Toronto Water supplies drinking water to, and collects and treats wastewater from, the City of Toronto's residents (about 450,000 water accounts) and its industrial, commercial and institutional sector (about 15,000 water accounts). It also supplies water to the Region of York and receives sewage from portions of the Region of Peel and the Greater Toronto Airport Authority.

The City of Toronto, Ontario, Canada, which lies on the shore of Lake Ontario, is ideally located for operations with a worldwide focus. The multi-cultural nature of the city (more than 100 ethnic groups) provides international companies a large pool of the language skills necessary to operate in international markets. For more information, visit www.city.toronto.on.ca.

About the BE Conference

The BE Conference, which consistently scores a 99 percent attendee satisfaction rating, is a once-a-year learning opportunity for Bentley users and their managers offering professional training, technology updates, keynotes, and best practice sharing. At these sessions, attendees better themselves, better their organizations, and better the ways they can improve the world's infrastructure.

To pre-register for BE Conference 2006, go to www.be.org/preregister.

About Bentley

Bentley Systems, Incorporated provides software for the lifecycle of the world's infrastructure. The company's comprehensive portfolio for the building, plant, civil, and geospatial vertical markets spans architecture, engineering, construction (AEC) and operations. With 2004 revenues exceeding $300 million, Bentley is the leading provider of AEC software to the Engineering News-Record Design 500 and major owner-operators.

To receive Bentley press releases as they are issued, visit www.bentley.com/bentleywire. For more information, visit www.bentley.com.

Bentley, the "B" logo, BE, BE Awards of Excellence, Haestad Methods, MicroStation GeoGraphics, Bentley Water, WaterGEMS, and Skelebrator are either registered or unregistered trademarks or service marks of Bentley Systems, Incorporated or one of its direct or indirect wholly-owned subsidiaries. Other brands and product names are trademarks of their respective owners.