US: CentralSquare Technologies, a leader in public administration and public safety software, announced that it has acquired Lucity, the best-in-class provider of enterprise asset management (EAM) software, exclusively focused on the needs of local governments. CentralSquare already provides a software platform that enables municipalities and counties to manage and optimize key functions, including finance, human capital management, community development, utility billing, taxes, revenue management and citizen engagement. Acquiring Lucity and integrating its solutions with CentralSquare’s enables public sector agencies to manage every function of local government using a single, smart and unified software suite, available in the cloud or on-premise.
This acquisition comes at a time when poor infrastructure—from polluted drinking water to crumbling roads—and rising maintenance costs are reducing the quality of life in most communities. In fact, the American Society of Civil Engineers gave American infrastructure a D+ rating. Further, in an age of stretched local government budgets, communities will need to invest another $4.6 trillion by 2025 just to get their roads, bridges and drinking water supplies to a B+ rating. All this leads to citizens suffering personally as dilapidated infrastructure robs them of $3,400 every year in disposable income. Faced with tight budgets, local governments strive to improve the performance of assets and infrastructure by maximizing their lifecycle and usage, minimizing maintenance expense and making smart decisions in allocating critical resources, all while improving quality of service, the environment, and health and safety for their citizens.
Solving this problem lies at the heart of CentralSquare’s mission to empower safer and smarter communities through the industry’s broadest, smartest and most unified software platform for all local government needs. “We fundamentally believe in creating technology that has a multiplier effect on the work done by the public sector,” said CentralSquare CEO Simon Angove. “Nowhere is the need to ‘do more with less’ greater than in managing scarce infrastructure resources while meeting the needs of growing communities and demanding citizens. By combining Lucity’s enterprise asset management platform with the CentralSquare suite, local government officials will be able to view through a ‘single pane of glass’ how each asset is affecting their community’s finances and smartly use permitting and community development data to better plan infrastructure and build capital reserves to create long-term thriving communities. As more assets become IoT-enabled, we are committed to bringing our deep bench of talent in AI and data science to provide smart and actionable insights that enable communities to reduce costs and respond faster to all emerging infrastructure needs.”
“For over 30 years, Lucity has been the market leader in providing software that enables communities to understand which physical assets they own, how the assets are performing, where repairs are needed, how long the assets will last, and how much it will cost to replace them,” said Lucity President and CEO Don Pinkston. “We’re thrilled to join CentralSquare as they share our mission of empowering local governments with best-in-class technology. CentralSquare brings an existing customer network of over 7,500 agencies and enables Lucity’s software to reach more communities across North America as they grapple with solving increasingly complex asset and work management needs.”
“Lucity’s Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) software is a logical extension of the CentralSquare public administration suite. Being able to get a comprehensive picture across finance, community development, asset management, and work orders will improve efficiency and increase transparency for North American public administration agencies and the communities they serve,” said Barbara Madruga, Director, Technology Services Department, City of Medford, OR. Jeff Kasson, IT Manager, City of North Port, FL, commented, “We are excited to see Lucity’s Enterprise Asset Management software benefit from the deep bench of talent and resources that being a part of CentralSquare will bring.”
Furthermore, data shows that of the 33,000 traffic fatalities each year, one-third involve poor road conditions. Lucity’s software catalyzes public safety through preventive maintenance of roads and analysis of accident data to reduce the number of road fatalities. Similarly, Lucity’s software enables better upkeep of powerlines and transformers. Downed powerlines are cited as the cause in many wildfires, which destroy thousands of homes each year.
