Citation

Brown WJ, Lipsett FR. J. Crim. Justice 1976; 4(3): 191-202.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1976, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/0047-2352(76)90002-7

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

When planning or simulating the operations of radio patrol cars, it is necessary to know the response time and response speed. In the present work the response speed was measured for downtown and surburban cars in order to facilitate computer simulations of patrol operations. Recorders were installed in the cars and records of dispatch delay, travel time, distance, response time, service time, and percentage of time per shift answering calls, were kept. Curves (which may be of general application) were fitted to the data for each parameter. The most probable average speed of the downtown car was 16 mph and of the suburban cars, 25 mph and 27 mph. Because of different average distances, however, the response times were comparable. Good agreement was found berween average travel times calculated from a formula given by R.C. Larson and travel times found experimentally in the present work.