MDT Refresh

The West Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service (WYFRS) is inviting expressions of interest for an upcoming tender for the provision of Mobile Data Terminal (MDT) Hardware, and associated additional services. As the fourth-largest Fire and Rescue Service in the UK, WYFRS serves over 2.2 million people across 800 square miles, providing emergency coverage 24 hours a day, every day of the year.

WYFRS employees approx. 1500 staff. At this time, WYFRS is looking to inform the market of this opportunity and assess the market's interest and its appetite to bid for and deliver this upcoming contract.

Full details will be provided in the tender opportunity. Overview – WYFRS currently utilise the Panasonic FZ-A3 tablet and corresponding Havis dock onboard all frontline appliances.

In total there are around 60 operational MDT’s fitted to pumps, specials and command vehicles. WYFRS possess around 90 devices in total including those used for spares, testing, and command and control purposes.

The MDT’s mounted within vehicles are docked via a compatible FZ-A3 specific Havis dock providing power and antenna connection for Wi-Fi/4G/GPS, maintaining the antenna connections would be beneficial but is not crucial to operation of the tablets, the supply of power is mandatory for the purposes of charging the tablet while onboard the vehicle. The FZ-A3 is compatible with pass through antenna connections (via the Havis dock), which are provided by the roof mounted Sure Sandcastle antenna fitted to all operational vehicles.

Power is supplied to the dock by a hardwired Lind adapter (supplied at 24VDC input) at the Panasonic defined output voltage (15VDC) and is believed to be incompatible with other manufacturers equipment. Both the dock and hardwired vehicle power supply will be in scope for replacement along with the MDT tablet.

The Sure antenna is not in scope for replacement, nor is the mounting bracket or Ram mount. WYFRS are aiming to procure approx. 100 tablet devices and 75 vehicle kits (dock + vehicle power supply).

The tablets must use Android OS with a minimum OS requirement of Android 15. The dock will provide charging power for the tablets and be compatible with the vehicle power supplies.

Please note that this request for information (RFI) is not a call for competition. Further details will be made available in the official tender documents upon publication.

The tender route is yet to be determined and as such further details will be provided in due course. WYFRS reserve the right to discuss requirements with any supplier beyond this initial notice before any competitive tender process is undertaken.

We also recommend that you register with the West Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service's E-Procurement system, 'In-tend,' at the following link https://in-tendhost.co.uk/wyfrs/aspx/Home . This will ensure that if a competitive tender procedure is undertaken, you will already have access to the documentation once live.