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Police Operations and Data Analysis Report, Morgan Hill, California
107
Response Times
We analyzed the response times to various types of calls, separating the duration into dispatch and
travel time, to determine whether response times varied by call type. Response time is measured as
the difference between when a call is received and when the first unit arrives on scene. This is
further divided into dispatch delay and travel time. Dispatch delay is the time between when a call
is received and when the first unit is dispatched. Travel time is the remaining time until the first
unit arrives on scene.
We begin the discussion with statistics that include all calls combined. We started with 1,848 events
for winter and 2,243 events for summer. We limited our analysis to 771 other-initiated calls for
winter and 879 calls for summer. After excluding calls without valid arrival times, we were left with
650 calls in winter and 577 calls in summer for our analysis. For the entire year, we began with
26,669 calls, limited our analysis to 11,248 other-initiated calls, and further focused our analysis on
8,209 calls after excluding those lacking valid arrival times.
Our initial analysis does not distinguish calls on the basis of their priority; instead, it examines the
difference in response for all calls by time of day and compares summer and winter periods. We
then present a brief analysis of response time for high-priority calls alone.