Joining up police and fire fleet management the Staffordshire way

The Joint Emergency Transport Service (JETS) in Staffordshire is a great example of how joining up police and fire fleet management can create a platform for future resilience. What began as a collaboration around a shared building has evolved into a strategic, data-driven operation that is reshaping how both services think about vehicles, technology, risk, and climate.

I visited the team in Stafford during the summer after seeing some great posts from Chief Inspector Scott McGrath on LinkedIn. I was curious how the joined-up approach to fleet management worked and if there were things other services could learn from it. Sitting around the table overlooking the workshops, I chatted with the team about the origins of the collaboration and what today’s challenges look like.

Building on solid collaboration experience

The collaboration itself is not new. Service Director for Commercial and Fleet, Helen Holden tells me the joint approach dates back nearly a decade. The building they work from is owned by Staffordshire Fire and Rescue Service, but it is home to a fully integrated fleet function that maintains around 630 Staffordshire Police vehicles and just under 200 fire vehicles from a single workshop.

All servicing and maintenance functions are coordinated through JETS, with mobile technicians deployed where appropriate to minimise disruption and drive efficiency. The critical shift, however, has been in how leadership has been structured to bridge operational reality and fleet strategy. Temporary Chief Inspector John Cole, the operational lead for police fleet, is clear that his value is not being a car enthusiast but in understanding demand and knowing what police users want and what is best for public safety.

The same principle applies on the fire side, with Group Manager Chris Craddock acting as John’s counterpart, and with commercial and procurement oversight from Helen’s team. Together, they have built a model where front-line operational needs and fleet decision-making are closely connected, and they tell me that is exactly what is needed for the coming decade.

And of course, let’s not forget, both services come under a Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner in Staffordshire (one of five in England), so that also helps collaboration.

Today’s challenges

I asked Helen to identify the main issue facing JETS today and Helen is unequivocal in her response. “I would say the biggest challenge is decarbonisation. Looking at our net zero goals, we’ve got to work through with manufacturers our operational requirements against what’s available.” It’s a balancing act facing all emergency services who are working out what a ‘green’ fleet looks like in terms of capability, affordability, infrastructureand its contribution to wider organisational climate goals.

The light fleet is the obvious place to start. Staffordshire already has 18 pure electric vehicles and a good number of hybrids in both police and fire, largely in general-purpose roles. But the heavy fleet is where things get complex: fire appliances, rural response vehicles, and specialist units all have demanding duty cycles, high payloads, and reliability expectations that current EV and alternative fuel solutions cannot easily meet.

Facing these challenges together is where the joint structure pays off. The team can watch industry developments together and test the relevance to emergency services. Hydrogen, for example, is on the radar because JCB, based in Staffordshire, has committed heavily to hydrogen-fuelled machinery. Chris recalls how Staffordshire Fire and Rescue Service was pulled into that journey early, saying that because of this change in risk they have altered their own operating procedures to deal with hydrogen fuelled vehicles and that his service was one of the pioneers in this space.

This experience gives Staffordshire a unique insight into the realities of hydrogen as they have looked at the infrastructure demands, the safety considerations, and the limits of current technology to see if it works for police and/or fire needs. They’ve done the same with HVO, another alternative fuel source. The team is wary of backing any single solution too soon, as Helen notes, they are watching other organisations’ experiments with hydrogen and HVO closely but remain cautious about “nailing their colours to the mast” for now.

Building on solid data foundations

If the fuel and technology future is uncertain, the team is not waiting passively. Instead, they are building the data and governance foundations that will allow them to pivot intelligently when solutions mature. Central to this is telematics, rolled out across the police fleet and now being extended to fire.

“We absolutely are now starting to use the data to look at utilisation of vehicles,” explains Helen. “We are asking ourselves the question: here do we repurpose vehicles that aren’t being utilised, or utilised as effectively as other areas?” That has already allowed the team to stand up new operational units without buying new vehicles, simply by redeploying underused assets. One new team in Burslem was equipped using 10 repurposed cars, avoiding capital spend entirely.

Telematics is also transforming driver behaviour and safety. John recalls that before the current system, high impact collision numbers were a high number per week. With proactive monitoring and a dedicated Sergeant for driver standards, that picture has changed dramatically, with a good reduction. Chief Inspector Scott McGrath joined us around the table for the discussion, he leads roads policing in Staffordshire and said there has been a culture shift because of these changes.

Staffordshire Police has seen collision costs fall significantly with reputational risk on the roads better managed because of the move to telematics. That same telematics platform is now being adapted for fire, with Business Manager Grace Bowden and the JETS analyst team supporting rollout so that the fire service can avoid many of the early pitfalls encountered by the police.

Joining up procurement

The collaborative model also extends to procurement and standardisation, another critical enabler of future readiness. Where possible, police and fire now buy the same platforms for similar roles: for example, Toyota Corollas serve as both police response cars and fire response vehicles. As Alex Turner, who oversees vehicle commissioning and disposal, explains, that brings economies of scale and simplifies maintenance: “The light technical staff in our workshop are working on the same vehicle just with different stickers on.”

This thinking scales beyond Staffordshire. The team has been involved in regional and national work to standardise public order carriers and other specialist vehicles, collaborating with neighbouring forces to design common specifications and leverage bulk purchasing. That reduces unit costs while ensuring vehicles are designed from the outset for contemporary risks, whether that is mass public order deployments, wildfire, flooding, or rural incidents in remote areas of the county.

Climate impacts

We talk about climate change and how it is influencing vehicle specifications. New 4x4s, more capable off-road units, upgraded water rescue vehicles and reconsidered wildfire capability all reflect a shared assessment of emerging risk that during the five-heatwave summer shows that prolonged heat events are no longer a rarity. Future water carriers and other appliances are now being designed through a process that brings together operational leads, equipment specialists, fleet managers, and data from JETS.

Underpinning all of this is a recognition that fleet is now inseparable from broader organisational strategy. Helen links the fleet work directly to a wider sustainability strategy that once seemed optional to some colleagues, but now clearly frames climate change, biodiversity, and electrification as a coherent whole.

By joining up police and fire fleet management, Staffordshire has created more than just an efficient workshop. JETS is a strategic hub where operational reality, emerging technology, environmental targets, and financial constraints coalesce in one place. In a world where the fleet of the future is evolving to meet the ever-changing risk, the JETS approach to strategic, joined-up, data-rich collaboration is one that other emergency services should be looking to emulate.

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Helen and John will be sharing more about JETS at The Emergency Services Show. They are speaking on the Fleet of the future stage on 16 September at 1530. Register for your free ticket here.