Patrol Car Areas (Beats) - Determining the correct number of patrol car areas or beats for a community should be the first step in deciding the appropriate number of officers required for that community. An analysis of an agencies calls-for-service workload can ascertain the correct number of patrol beats necessary for each work shift including accountability for the differing service times required for the different types of calls encountered in various parts of a community.

Assignment/Availability or Relief Factor - In any agency that must be operational seven days a week, the number of extra people required to staff for weekend days off, vacation time, sick time, etc., must be accurately determined. An accurate and easily updated relief factor can be calculated for each major staffing category of a law enforcement agency.

Staffing Requirements - By utilizing the appropriate number of patrol beats needed for each shift, the relief factor and any other administrative or safety requirements (e.g., two-officer cars mandated in certain areas of a jurisdiction), the correct figure for the total number of patrol officers needed to staff an agency can be determined. Coupled with the agencies attrition rate, this figure can be used to defend additions in personnel in preparing annual budgets as well as serving as the basis for determining overall agency staffing needs.

Adding New Beats - Optimum average beat workload requirements can be calculated and utilized to indicate when new beats should be added. If beat workloads exceed recommended thresholds, one or more new beats can be added to reach equilibrium (provided adequate staffing is available or can be obtained).

Annexing New Areas - Similarly, workload analyses can be applied to proposed or newly annexed areas to determine required beat and patrol staffing levels.

Response Time Improvements - Although increasing patrol staff size can lead to incremental improvements in response times, a review of agency administrative and hiring policies may indicate other areas where significant response time improvements can be achieved. Increasing staff where bottlenecks in the call taking or recording process occur can sometimes yield substantial response time improvements.

Optimum Staffing Schedules - See What�s New for information on this highly complex topic.