Patrol Car Allocation Model

User's guide to the RAND Patrol Car Allocation Model (PCAM), a FORTRAN program designed to help police departments determine the number of patrol cars to have on duty in each of their geographical commands in order to meet the department's standards of performance, consistent with the resources available, the hours when patrol cars start work, and the department's dispatching policies. The report describes typical applications, and provides complete nontechnical instructions for collecting data and operating the program. Appendixes give the mathematical background and proof for the equations underlying the model, and compare PCAM with previous patrol car allocation models. PCAM can be used either in batch mode or interactively. Operating costs are very low. (Detailed information for data processing personnel, including installation instructions and file specifications, will be found in R-1786/3. An overview from the administrator's viewpoint is given in R-1786/1.)