MBA 550 Major Case Long City Fire Services

MBA 550 Major Case

Long City Fire Services

The City of Long City, Florida, has a population of about 108,000 people, according to the 1990 census. Like many cities in the great City, city services had not been modernized for some years. A shortage of tax revenues made it difficult for the city management to satisfy all of the demands for services.

A recent residential fire had focused attention on the fire services of Long City. A particularly tragic fire occurred when major road repairs had blocked a key thoroughfare; the situation was made more difficult by a voice that was particularly difficult to hear on the 911 line. Both of these factors, plus a rainy night, caused delays in fire equipment reaching the scene of the fire. The tragic death of four small children focused much attention on the fire department.

The Long City Fire Chief, William Sweet, was a veteran of three decades of fire services. He had risen through the ranks of fire fighting, and knew the strengths and weaknesses of the Long City fire department. Ample water supply and an excellent road network were some of the favorable aspects of the department. Unlike cities in some parts of the country, Long City streets were typically North-South or East-West in orientation; there were no major lakes or industrial complexes to disrupt the regular grid of streets throughout the city.

A major difficulty in Long City was the lack of sufficient fire stations. There were currently six stations in the city; these provide the "supply" of fire services for Long City. Although there is potential demand for fire protection at any point in the city, the fire department had identified seventeen "regional demand points" throughout the city. If adequate fire protection is provided at each of these demand points, Chief Sweet believed that protection would be adequate throughout the city. The locations of the fire stations and the seventeen regional demand points are shown in Exhibit 1, along with a discussion of the way Long City coded locations.

Exhibit 1

Location of Fire Stations and Regional Demand Points-Long City, Florida

Fire Station Locations:

Regional Demand Point Locations:

Note: The City of Long City is square, five miles on each side. The point at the southwest corner of the city is the reference (zero) point for the fire station locations and the regional demand point locations. The X distance is the distance in miles between the western city boundary and the station; the Y distance is the distance in miles between the southern city boundary and the station.

A recent study of response times to fires had been conducted in Long City.

This information is shown in Exhibit 2. The locations of the addresses for which the responses were timed is shown using the same codes.

Exhibit 2

Listing of Response Time Experiment

Sample Information: Response Time Experiment

Key: Run Number The serial number of the timed emergency response

Station Number The number of the station housing the vehicle

Add-X The distance of the address from the Western boundary

Add-Y The distance of the address from the Southern boundary

Minutes The time of the response in minutes

There is only one universally accepted standard for measuring the adequacy of fire department response times: quicker is better. Chief Sweet had included the following comment in a memo written to the city manager explaining the standards of the Long City fire department:

On the average, a fire vehicle should be able to get to any location in the city within a maximum time of five minutes. I believe that a full analysis of our performance will show that we are achieving that response time.

The city manager, Chris Charlesides, was not certain just how much fire protection Long City should try to provide. If more stations were added, what benefits would accrue? Where should they be located? Charlesides asked Chief Relisch to provide potential locations, if fire stations were to be added to the system. The chief provided these locations, using the codes of Exhibit 1 for locating the stations:

Before approving the chief's recommendation to build these three new stations, Charlesides wanted to learn more about the benefits (reduced response time) that would arise from building these stations. There are substantial economic costs associated with building new stations (capital outlay in excess of $500,000; annual operating costs in excess of $400,000). Furthermore, there are political costs of opening new stations (Who wants the noise?) and political costs of closing existing stations (Don't close my fire station!);on the whole, people are much more vocal about closing a station than about opening a new one.

Over the years, there has been some debate about an appropriate measure for fire protection. Although response time is almost always considered in measuring fire protection, it may be used in different ways. If the average response time is used, some parts of the city may have very poor response, while others may have excellent service. An alternative is to look at the maximum time to get to any Regional Demand Point from the nearest station. For a first cut at the analysis, Charlesides decided to evaluate a proposed change in fire stations by looking at the maximum time between any RDP and its closest station.

Questions

1. Determine how far a fire truck would travel from each station to every Regional Demand Point. Hint: Assume city streets are laid out in a rectangular grid and vehicles always travel in a North-South or East-West direction (there are no angled streets).

2. If you know the distance that a fire truck travels, how can you predict the time required to travel that distance? Develop a method to predict the time required for any distance that a fire truck might travel. Hint: Use the sample runs in Figure 2: One such predictive expression would take the form:

TIME (MINUTES) = CONST + COEFFICIENT x DISTANCE (MILES)

Once you have developed such an expression from the available data, is your solution a valid expression for the time? If so, why? If not, why not? Are other expressions more valid? Explain and develop, if applicable.

3. Make a table showing the response time for every Regional Demand Point from every station. Which Regional Demand Points are not covered by any existing station within five minutes? Within six minutes? Within seven minutes?

4. What is the minimum number of stations that can cover all Regional Demand Points within four minutes? Within five minutes? Within six minutes? Within seven minutes?

5. Based upon the above, should the city build the three new stations (7, 8 & 9)? Explain in detail. What about closing existing stations? Are any redundant? Explain in detail.

6. Develop and be prepared to present a package for Mr. Charlesides to use in evaluating the tradeoffs between city budget expenditures and fire protection. Consider all ramifications both political and economic including such items as: average cost of a fire, average time to respond versus damage (compare this with city response time goal), available data on lawsuits against cities for inadequate/late response by firefighting teams, effect of building new stations (consider cost of bonds in taxes, siting stations, cost of maintenance, personnel, and equipment), effect of not building new stations, etc.