Busiest / Quietest

[Luminoki]

Following on from Cardiff Fires thread about chasing calls, what are the busiest/quietest stations in your service. Thanks to a large number of members here we all know what its like down “London Town” so i’d be interested to hear about other services. These are West Mids’s 16/17 ( im not going to count the telecare jobs )

Busiest

1. West Bromwich ( only 24 hr BRV in its command area ) 1879
2. Ladywood ( highest Cat1 call numbers and covers city centre ) 1701
3. Aston ( 24 hour BRV covering city centre ) 1260
4. Ward End 1249
5. Highgate ( 2 pumps and a HP covering city centre ) 1192

Quietest

1. Bickenhill ( Tech Rescue, only respond to Cat 1s and USAR ) 151 
2. Tettenhall ( lates so only operational 10am - 10pm ) 200 
3. Wednesbury ( Tech Rescue same as Bickenhill )  282
4. Aldridge 342
5. Stourbridge 395

[Jet]

GMFRS

Busiest station grounds for all calls year to date (including EMR until cease of trial)

1. Manchester Central - 1975
2. Wigan - 1464
3. Rochdale - 1345
4. Farnworth - 1304
5. Blackley - 1280

Quietest - (all day crewed - previously retained)

1. Mossley - 93
2. Marple - 165
3. Irlam - 191
4. Littleborough - 200
5. Ramsbottom - 218

However when you take into account busiest single appliances, it paints a somewhat different picture...

1. Moss Side 1st pump - 1751
2. Manchester Central 2nd pump - 1706
3. Manchester Central 1st pump - 1581
4. Bolton 2nd pump - 1451
5. Chadderton 1st pump - 1388

[Bgjm21]

Do these take calls onto other station grounds into account?

[Jet]

In the case of my post regarding GMFRS station calls, no. Only calls on those respective grounds not taking into account what appliances attended. The bit I posted about individual appliances takes into account all calls by that appliance over all station grounds. For me it’s a more accurate depiction of where truly is the busiest from a firefighters perspective actually riding the pumps.

[Luminoki]

For West Mids it factors in call numbers as a whole. The BRVs cover a wide area and those numbers also take into account calls going over the border

[Jet]

The debate of where truly is the busiest will never be settled due to the disparities of how call statistics are collated and the different types of appliances, mobilising policies, shift/watch systems etc. The saying ‘there are lies, damn lies and statistics’ comes to mind. We previously had a topic where individual members of this forum posted up the shouts they attended themselves. But I guess the above paints a pretty good picture. 

I was speaking to a guy on a detachment recently who insisted that Gorton was once upon a time the busiest station in Europe! Could entirely be true but how do you actually measure that on such a large scale??

[Becile]

Jamiejet...how does the service justify the day crewed stations at those low figures  (roughly 1 a day) You mentioned they were previously retained, surely more cost effective (unless you can't get the crews any more of course )

[Jet]

I don’t know Becile, the last one that was converted from retained to DC did so a few months before I transferred. I am guessing they struggled for retained Ffs like everywhere else and decided it was more cost effective to have it day crewed and couldn’t justify closing them due to attendance times. 

[Messyshaw]

" London Town?? 

Sorry @Luminoki. I am going to have to put you right I am afraid. Not in a pedantic way, but because I am concerned for @Steve's blood pressure when he reads that! After all, he ain't getting any younger. ?

London is a city, a capital city - the political, cultural and economic centre of the UK. Its the location of Her Maj, parliament and the where the commonwealth is centred.

Slough is a 'Town'. They have a Mars Bar factory, a railway station and a fictional David Brent

Message ends ?

[Noddy]

Jaime is right. If calls on station ground was the criteria i reckon the West Midlands list would look somewhat different.  

The numbers still shock me when I think back.  I was sent to a quiet station when I joined 20 years ago doing around 1500 calls.  In 2002 I moved to a different station and it was around 3800.... the days of which will never be seen again. 

[Bgjm21]

I dunno Noddy, if emergency medical response comes in we might find call rates go back up? Potentially an increase in fatalities and fires with a dramatically increasing elderly population? 

[Noddy]

Yes of course... I was referring to fire calls however ?

[Bgjm21]

Ah... my bad

[Steve]

5 hours ago, Messyshaw said:

" London Town?? 

Sorry @Luminoki. I am going to have to put you right I am afraid. Not in a pedantic way, but because I am concerned for @Steve's blood pressure when he reads that! After all, he ain't getting any younger. ?

London is a city, a capital city - the political, cultural and economic centre of the UK. Its the location of Her Maj, parliament and the where the commonwealth is centred.

Slough is a 'Town'. They have a Mars Bar factory, a railway station and a fictional David Brent

Message ends ?

Thank f**k I read down before I exploded Messy.... Well answered.

[OscarTango]

For a bit of semi-urban County brigade perspective rather than big Mets...

Kent's stats for 2017 are listed by appliance rather than stations. Our Busiest station with one pump (excluding specials) is Rochester. It replaced a station deeper in the Medway towns just over a year ago and being central to the county and major roads is now the busiest at 1238 incidents attended last year.

Dartford could be a contender for busiest station on whole, with 1892 between the two pumps. Along with Sevenoaks it butts up very close to LFB's ground.

Thameside close behind at 1626. However many of the 2nd pumps here are dispatched during daytime hours to standby at off the run on-call stations  to meet attendances at hard to reach areas. Essentially one station covering two station grounds.

Busiest on-call is Eastchurch on the isle of Sheppey. Very busy with EMR at 619 calls last year. For perspective the day crewed station I'm at temporarily did about 670 last year.

Quietest stand alone station was the on call station at Grain at a stonking 11 shouts. Poor crewing and proximity to other on the run pumps a big factor for many on call pumps numbers.

Very few of the above numbers are AFAs due to our aggressive call challenging policy, so considerably less "chaff" jobs. Also standbys are not included in our incident numbers, which certainly pushes up the number "times turned a wheel" numbers for on-call. My home on-call stations movements, including fire calls, EMR and stand bys totalled about 400 last year.

For safety from embarressment I wont bother posting the stats for the Defence Fire Risk Management Organisation

Out of idle curiosity id love to know LFBs quietest. Still Biggin Hill?.....

[Steve]

Here is top of the list for LFB and bottom of the list.... No surprises, the Mighty 'Ho at the top and Biggin Hill at the bottom.

[Noddy]

Soho can’t have much time to do anything else but turnout! That’s just silly numbers ?

[OscarTango]

Aye, even with AFAs thats not somewhere you're going to get a good kip.

Biggin Hill though. That must stick out like an expensive sore thumb to LFEPA. Surprised it's not been foisted on us and made retained!

Noticed there's a few missing off the list though. Where do Orpington and Bexley fit in given the similar populations/risk profiles to the surrounding country towns?

[Luminoki]

In West Mids we had telecare falls response, Wolverhampton and Fallings Park were doing over 1000 of those jobs alone. Foleshill was around the 1300 mark for jobs, but 400 of those were telecare

 

[Jet]

Interesting Steve, I've never seen numbers that correlate to the number of mobilisations a station had as opposed to incidents on station ground vs individual appliance mobilisations. My first night shift standby at Soho didn't see a wheel turned. I wasn't allowed to leave in the morning 

[Steve]

23 minutes ago, OscarTango said:

Biggin Hill though. That must stick out like an expensive sore thumb to LFEPA. Surprised it's not been foisted on us and made retained!

Noticed there's a few missing off the list though. Where do Orpington and Bexley fit in given the similar populations/risk profiles to the surrounding country towns?

Yes, Like Wennington, when LFB expanded in 1963 a load came in, but those two just fell our side of the border. Wennington literally by a couple of hundred yards. There whole ground is pretty much West of the Station because just to the East you are in Essex County FRS. LFB have done some scoping around retained on a couple of occassions, but politics, practicalities and lack of local interest in being retained have ruled it out.

I only took a screen shot of the top and bottom of the list, went back in to look, Bexley 1076 total, 785 on ground, 105 primary fires. Orpington 1131, 836, 139.

11 minutes ago, Jamiejet said:

Interesting Steve, I've never seen numbers that correlate to the number of mobilisations a station had as opposed to incidents on station ground vs individual appliance mobilisations. My first night shift standby at Soho didn't see a wheel turned. I wasn't allowed to leave in the morning 

Its always been there Jamie, but now they publish it. Also in the same email is all of that data in excel form, so you can orgainse it by each of the colums to give you a different running order. Although thses days Soho take the big three; total, on ground and primary fires. I've no doubt if they added 'all fires' and special services the running order changes again.

[TandA]

Steve

I was a little surprised to see the call numbers for Woodford, relative to Hainault, Romford and Leyton all of whom I would have expected to be busier than nice, quiet, fairly well off suburban Woodford.  

I guess Woodford get a boost from the M11 / A406 and like Wennington they are very very close to the Essex border so must pick up second machine to all of Loughton / Buckhurst Hill area especially now Loughton has dropped to one machine.

I will have to try and dig out some Essex figures when I am back in but I don’t see any of our stations doing much over 1000 -1250 calls and busiest RDS is probably about 500 now.

[Steve]

Hainault has alwasy been dead, Woodford have always been busier than them, but they do have a big ground. Romford was always quite for calls but had their moments, they took a hit when they opened Harold Hill Fire Stn in 2010. I'd say HH have taken 500 from Romford and 200 from Hornchurch as Harold Hill (the district) was the busiest part of the ground alongside Romford Town Centre. However, because of the location of the Town centre, Romford, Hornchurch & Dagenham all border there.

Leyton used to be quite a busy little station back in the day, lots of decent fires in houses and factories. in the Mid 2000's they actually put a Pump in there (when they made a lot of the inner stations single pump), but that disappeared again in 2010.

They are all what I'd call quiet stations as I always managed to keep myself at lively stations as well you know.

[Keith]

2 hours ago, OscarTango said:

Quietest stand alone station was the on call station at Grain at a stonking 11 shouts. Poor crewing and proximity to other on the run pumps a big factor for many on call pumps numbers.

I am reading that right OscarTango, 11 calls in a year?

Not that we ever want to talk about closing stations, but with that few the questions do have to be asked, is it necessary and how do they maintain any sort of competency?

[Carl]

2 minutes ago, Keith said:

11 calls in a year?

Jesus, I have had 7 calls today which included an RTC with a side removal and 2 fires and I thought it was quiet