Fractile Time Reporter

Fractile Time Reporter

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Fractile Time Reporter

Fractile's are contemporary fire department deployment measurements that calculate the number and percentage of runs broken-down into minutes or fractions of minutes. Fractile's can be used to measure "Turnout Time", "Response Time" and "Travel Time".

Unlike other reporting formats in FirePoint, fractile times are captured in text and copied to the clipboard for immediate "pasting" into reports, memorandum, and other text documents.

Fractile reporting is available in FirePoint's Incidents and Apparatus modules. Here we'll look at Apparatus fractile reporting. Begin by press the Apparatus button on the Command Window. Select the Apparatus records you wish to include in your report. Now select Print Report... from the File menu. Select the Apparatus Fractile Times report format.

$analysisfractile1$

Here's the Fractile Reporter dialog in FirePoint. We are measuring response time in 15 second intervals up to 10 minutes. We've selected a comparison between Alarm Time and Arrival Time at a "1 Minute" interval. FirePoint allows you to select any two time fields including user defined time fields. Since NFIRS 5 does not track the time the Apparatus begins it's response, it's been added as an optional field. This field is, however, essential if you wish to track both "Turnout Time" and "Travel Time".

$analysisfractile2$

Press the Copy button to copy the fractile text from FirePoint onto the clipboard. From there simply select another application and under that application's Edit menu select Paste. Here's how our fractile looks when pasted into a document:

Q1 Response Time Summary

Fractile Analysis of 13 Apparatus records.

Response Time < or = 00:00:00 .0% (0)
Response Time < or = 00:01:00 15.4% (2)
Response Time < or = 00:02:00 15.4% (2)
Response Time < or = 00:03:00 38.5% (5)
Response Time < or = 00:04:00 69.2% (9)
Response Time < or = 00:05:00 76.9% (10)
Response Time < or = 00:06:00 76.9% (10)
Response Time < or = 00:07:00 76.9% (10)
Response Time < or = 00:08:00 76.9% (10)
Response Time < or = 00:09:00 76.9% (10)
Response Time < or = 00:10:00 76.9% (10)

Median Response Time 4
Average Response Time 10.05

This is a small sampling of records, but it illustrates a fractile breakdown for the records in selection at the time the fractile was run. Notice how a protracted response time in just a few incidents will skew "Average Response Time". Generally, the "Median Response Time" figure (the one that falls in the middle) is a better performance indicator.