In Buffalo, New York, police protection has improved dramatically with the introduction of single-officer patrols and work shifts designed to match the true pattern of daily calls to police.

The changes, which started with Buffalo's Central District on July 16, mean many more patrol cars on the street and less officers tied up on dispatched calls, said Buffalo Human Resources Commissioner Leonard Matarese. Response times have been reduced significantly, and in some cases as much as half, he added.

Wayne State Industrial Engineering Professor Kenneth Chelst, one of a handful of experts in operations research applied to police and fire departments, designed the highly efficient work schedule after analyzing Buffalo's police dispatch activities.

The city of Buffalo asked Chelst last January to study its police patrol system with the idea of changing from two-officer patrol cars to one. This upstate New York city with a population of 290,000 was one of a dwindling number of major U.S. cities still using two-officer patrols.

The solo patrols combined with Chelst's shift schedule will eventually save the financially strapped city from $10 to $12 million a year if the labor package already accepted by the police union is approved by the state authority overseeing Buffalo's finances, Matarese said. Full implementation of the plan will reduce the police force after four years through retirement and attrition from 875 to 673 officers.

Data on an average summer night using the old system indicated that only three or four patrol cars out of 33 were available for immediate dispatch. In fact, some non-life threatening calls on busy nights never got serviced when back loads occurred, said Matarese.

Studying the data, Chelst found that the heavy volume of calls police management thought was occurring after 9 p.m. actually happens about 5 p.m. Quality of life calls, such as barking dog complaints, tended to tie down two officers at a time, Matarese said.

Using a mathematical model called linear programming, Chelst came up with a shift schedule using five overlapping starting times throughout the 24-hour work cycle. The officers still work 10-hour shifts, which they insisted on keeping, but cover the city much more efficiently. With the changes, anywhere from 10 to 29 patrols are now available for immediate dispatch, depending on the shift and workload.

Officers riding alone are quickly backed up by other patrol cars flocking to crime scenes. "The backup from other officers has been spectacular," Buffalo Police Officer Joe Ahmed told The Buffalo News. Now, the whole platoon is working as a team, instead of having two officers working together.

"What Ken brought to the table was the ability to systematically analyze the data," said Matarese. "Had he not invented this shift schedule, we would not have seen this dramatic change."