Evaluating Response Time Performance of Multiple Patrol Dispatching Using Stochastic Simulation

Abstract

Our research considers one police quadrant that integrates four patrolling zones, and evaluates the impact of response time affected by reducing the number of servers from one to ¼ th of a patrol per patrolling zone. This serving capacity reduction is based on a recently implemented police patrolling strategy, where four patrols are assigned for regular preventive patrolling and to serve calls for service of a 911 Emergency Response System. The previous patrolling and serving strategy had assigned one police patrol per patrolling zone in a police quadrant with four patrolling zones. Given the multiple vehicle strategies of delinquent operations, police departments also have been forced to adopt similar combat strategies. Based on an international reference of 3 minutes maximum response time, our focus is to analyze the waiting time in the queue of calls for service and their total response time of the new multiple vehicle patrolling and dispatching strategy by using stochastic simulation, and to compare these results with the previous deployment strategy of one patrol per zone. Data was obtained from a 911 Emergency Response System in Mexico.