response time vs weight of response

lets say that you have 1 fire station with four people on duty and
their average travel time is 4 minutes

therefore - on average - you have 4 people showing up all at once at
the 4 minute mark

if you converted over to 4 public safety officers - you would have -
the first PSO arrives on scene in 1 minute - the 2nd arrive in 2
minutes - the 3rd arrives in 3 minutes - and the 4th arrives in 4
minutes

I would much rather have 1 PSO show up in 1 minute than 4 show up in 4
minutes for just about EVERY kind of emergency - wouldn't you? I cant
think of any type of emergency that would be better handled by 4
showing up in 4 minutes.

Consider the response to a bld fire. Fire truck arrives at scene in 4
minutes with 3 people in PPE and SCBA. The driver just has PPE on.
What would the response of 4 PSO look like? First PSO would arrive in
1 minute and take 1 or 2 minutes to put on PPE and SCBA. 2nd PSO
arrives in 2 minutes and takes 1 to 2 minutes to put on PPE and SCBA.
Etc. So the PSO system has 1rst person in gear at scene in 3 minutes -
2nd person in gear at scene in 4 minutes - 3rd person on gear at scene
in 5 minutes. 4th person at scene in gear in 6 minutes. The PSO system
is slower than the legacy system. But building fires are very rare.

Bottom line - PSO system is worse for very rare events but 100 times
better for common events.

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note to self - I should probably assume that the fire station covers a
16 square mile area - lets say the fire engine responds at 30 MPH over
a 2 mile distance - so the engine will travel 4 minutes - either to
north, south, east, or west. This forms a square that is 4 miles by 4
miles - or 16 square miles

If there are 4 PSO to cover 16 square miles - then they need to cover
4 square miles each - that is 2 miles by 2 miles - so the average
response distance is 1 mile - at 60 MPH that is 1 minute response time
- or at 30 MPH that is a 2 minute response time.

note 2 - assume each PSO is in a minivan