Run card software: build run cards from drive time
Run card software builds the list of units that respond to each area of a district, in the order they should be sent. GP Run Times builds that list from drive time over the actual road network: every station is timed to the center point of every area, and the units are ranked first due to last.
What a run card is
A run card (a run order, response order or first-due list, depending on the department) answers one question for one place: which unit gets there first, which second, and so on down the list. A dispatch center holds one for every geoprox area and sends units in that order. A run card that puts a slower unit first costs minutes on every call in that area, and nobody notices until someone checks the times.
Why drive time beats straight-line distance
Distance as the crow flies ignores rivers, railroads, dead ends, one-way streets and the difference between a parkway and a neighborhood street. Two stations can be the same distance from a point and ten minutes apart by road. Drive time is measured along the roads an apparatus would use, at the posted speeds of each road, with no traffic, so the order does not change with the time of day. That is the measure a run card should rest on, and it is the measure a chief can defend.
How the page ranks every station to every area
Add your stations and the center point of every geoprox area, typed in or from a workbook, and work out the run orders. Each row is one area: its units across the row in order, with the minutes and miles behind every place. Click a unit to see its route on a map, turn by turn. Where a unit belongs somewhere other than where the drive time puts it, for equipment, staffing or an agreement with a neighbor, drag it there; the placement is kept and marked, and the page says when the data under it changes. A spot on a divided highway is timed to the faster direction of travel.
What you get
A workbook in your department's own run order layout, ready for your CAD center, with the drive times behind every rank on a second sheet; a published run order your crews read on their phones; and a lookup that gives the run order for any address. Departments whose county GIS already works out travel times can rank by those instead.
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