Predicting and Evaluating Emergency Response Times

in Northern St. Louis County, Minnesota

Definitions

General Model: The general model is that which does not contain predictors related to time or call type.

Call Create to Enter: The time between a dispatcher receiving the call and entering the information

Call Create to Dispatch: The time between a dispatcher receiving and dispatching the call

Dispatch to Enroute: The time in minutes from when the call is dispatched to when the unit is on its way

Dispatch to On Scene: The time in minutes from when the call is dispatched to when the unit arrives on scene

Enroute to On Scene: The travel time of the unit to arrive on scene \(in minutes\)

Description of Model Selection

To select and fit models for each response, we used the validation set approach described in Chapter 6 of James et al. (2013). Ultimately, this process determines which predictors comprise a model that best predicts a particular response. We considered models with up to third-order continuous terms and interactions between predictors as well as the interaction between the quadratic term for distance from the station and the main effects. The resulting models consist of a subset of the terms we considered.