Does your agency do beats or no beats?

[Ambular1304]

Hi everyone! I am a 911 dispatcher and I have a few questions regarding if your agency uses a beat system or no beat system. A little background. We are a very small agency with usually 2 or 3 units and a WC and 1 or 2 dispatchers on a shift. The CAD system we use is RIMS. Our agency is attempting to see what fits best with our officers and dispatchers regarding beats. If your agency does a no beat system I would love to pick your brains and see how 1)How do you keep track of who's next? 2)Do certain calls not count? (Like TSTOPS and other officer initiated calls) 3)Any pros and cons?
Sorry in advance if this is in the wrong thread. All info is greatly appreciated
Amber

[slamdunc]

No beats. Broadcast message is put out as "county units; XXXXX County" and the available unit acknowledges the hail. We used to hail the shift supervisor and he would assign the call and both worked well. Traffic stops and other self-initiated actions don't count, UNLESS the officer is still tied up on his job. The only real drawback is the county cars are free to roam the entire county (387 square miles) and if the cars are in the northern end of the county and are assigned a call in the southern end, it cant take up to a half hour to get there.

The administration once looked at a vehicle locator system to tie into CAD, but the cost discouraged that. RIMS is capable of tying in with several AVL (fleet-management) systems and IMHO, this would be a blessing to dispatchers. A lot of officers don't want 'Big Brother' watching them this closely, as these devices track their speed and time-out.

[Rush817]

We use districts. Each patrol unit is assigned a district and CAD will recommend district officer to calls within their district. If the district officer isn't available then CAD will recommend an officer from the closest district available. Supervisors and K-9s are rove units and will assist on calls when needed.