How many visits a night do we get?
It is set by what the site needs and what you want to spend. Two or three visits across the night is the most common package on a quiet site, and busier or higher risk jobs take more. What matters more than the number is that the times move every night, because four visits at the same four times is less use than two visits nobody can predict.
How is a patrol different from a response call?
A patrol is booked, scheduled and happens whether anything is wrong or not. A response is triggered by an alarm or a control room alert and happens because something has already been detected. They work well together: patrols keep a presence on a quiet site and response covers the moment something actually kicks off.
Do the officers get out of the vehicle?
Yes. A drive past the gate is not a patrol, and anybody selling it as one is selling you nothing. The officer parks, walks the perimeter, checks the fixed points on the site, tries the locks and looks at the plant, then logs the visit. The whole point is that somebody has physically been round.
Will we know the patrol turned up?
Yes, in writing. Each visit produces a log with arrival and departure times and anything found. Where cameras are on site as well, the visits show up on the footage, and plenty of clients like the cross-check. If a visit did not happen, you will see that too, and we would rather that than a report that says it did.
Can patrols cover more than one of our sites?
Yes, and it usually works out well. Where you have several jobs running across Greater Manchester, one unit can take them all in over the course of a night, which brings the cost per site down considerably. Sites further apart get built into the route sensibly rather than promised and then squeezed.
What happens if the officer finds a problem?
They deal with what they safely can and escalate the rest immediately. Trespassers are challenged and reported and the police are called where there is a crime in progress rather than the officer getting into a confrontation. Damage, an open gate, a leak or anything unsafe is photographed, logged and phoned through to your keyholder rather than left in a report you read on Monday.
