GIS software can now be used by non-specialists to improve planning, analysis, and response. These tools offer managers the ability to eliminate much of the guesswork that has been the norm in tasks such as siting stations or deploying apparatus. What GIS Can Do Station Location Planning Siting fire stations is challenging task yet often over-simplified. Many stations are sited using a simple radius coverage scheme invented at the time of horse-drawn fire apparatus. Other formulas presume that fire departments protect only real property, that travel speed is constant at all hours of the day, and that emergency events occur randomly with respect to time.
Travel time is dependent on traffic patterns.
Most emergency events are predictable within certain limits and not randomly distributed. This approach is limited by the varying speeds, distances, and the availability of crew time in the face of competing duties. It is also not possible to test areas where streets have not been completed or where the street network is subject to change. GIS can assist in new station location analysis by letting emergency managers test, on the computer, station locations using average travel speeds or in minutes of travel with accuracy that can conform to the agencies' requirements. In developing standards for coverage, it is necessary to examine areas and perform statistical analyses of response performance within those areas.