COLUMBUS, OH -- (Marketwire) -- 01/30/13 -- Since January 2012, City Utilities of Springfield, Mo., Consumers Energy Company, DP&L, Green Mountain Power, Kansas City Power & Light Company, Lakeland Electric, NSTAR Electric and Gas Company, Salt River Project, Southern Maryland Electric Cooperative, United Illuminating Company, We Energies and a top-ten ranked U.S. utility(1) have signed multi-year contracts to use the ARCOS(SM) Callout and Scheduling Suite to automatically locate and assemble utility repair crews after normal business hours.

"More than 50 percent of the utilities renewing their contract with ARCOS this year have done so multiple times since first signing agreements," said Bruce Duff, chief executive officer of ARCOS, Inc.

Utility companies engage the Software-as-a-Service ARCOS Suite to initiate a callout for a crew to restore power, respond to a gas leak or react to a power plant emergency. The system automatically takes into account the availability and callout rules for every worker as it assembles a crew. The ARCOS Suite also helps managers track a crew's status during normal work hours to see who can take overtime in the event of an emergency.

According to Transmission & Distribution World magazine, the ARCOS Suite can help achieve a five- to 10-minute reduction in the Customer Average Interruption Duration Index (CAIDI), a reliability index for electric power utilities.(2) For power-generation plants, both fossil fuel and nuclear, the ARCOS Suite's automated emergency callout platform plays a role in preventing a unit shutdown, which can trigger the start-up of a more costly unit or require the plant to purchase energy to meet contractual commitments.

(1) Based on energy capacity owned as of Dec. 31, 2009.

(2) Transmission & Distribution World, "AEP Automates Callout," July 2011.

About ARCOS, Inc.
Twenty-three of the top 25 U.S. utilities rely on the ARCOS(SM) Callout and Scheduling Suite. When the power goes out, a gas leak is reported or another emergency occurs, the award-winning, SaaS-based ARCOS Suite instantaneously finds, assembles and tracks repair crews, reducing outage interruptions and improving restoration time for electric, gas and power plant utilities. For more information, visit www.arcos-inc.com or call 614-396-5500.

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