Emergency response messaging solution

Details

Fire and Emergency New Zealand (Fire and Emergency) is seeking registrations of interest from suppliers that have the capacity and capability to provide and support a modern, secure, and usable mobile response software solution allowing firefighters and other responding personnel to communicate vehicle and incident status back to our central Computer Aided Dispatch (CAD) system.

We are looking for an Emergency response messaging solution to run via a vehicle-mounted tablet, along with ongoing support for the solution.

We are seeking a supplier that understands the critical nature of emergency services and is keen to work with us to deliver an appropriate solution and support structure to reflect the important function we perform in the community.

Matters that are particularly important to us include system reliability, availability, usability, and seamless fallback to alternative methods when cellular networks are unavailable. The software would be the primary method by which Fire and Emergency operational personnel provide standard updates about an incident and might even be the only method during busy periods when voice calling is minimised. The solution therefore needs to be designed for excellent stability and uptime and should have a simple interface that does not distract users from the job in hand. As personnel frequently operate in areas outside cellular coverage, or when local cellular networks have failed, it needs to work alongside other methods used in Fire and Emergency for communicating status e.g. voice calling or messaging via LMR or satellite.

Fire and Emergency is New Zealand’s single, integrated fire and emergency services organisation. Our main objectives are to reduce unwanted fires, protect and preserve life, prevent or limit injury, and prevent or limit damage to property, land and the environment.

Fire and Emergency attends around 85,000 incidents per year across New Zealand from its 649 stations (operational bases), and has a workforce of around 12,000 volunteers, 1850 career firefighters, and 1000 management and support staff. All incident responses are dispatched via our three communications centres in Auckland, Wellington, and Christchurch. and which are co-located with New Zealand Police with whom we share some IT systems.