An application of demand profiling and optimisation of staffing levels within Leicestershire Police Force

In modern society there is a necessity for industries to maximise their productivity but also to minimise their outlay, be that in the form of equipment or personnel. Motivated by interest within UK policing towards professionalization of their service, the dual problem of modelling the demands upon front-line Police officers and the optimisation of available resources is investigated. Demand borne from calls to service from the general public is considered and a method whereby this may be realistically quantified in a predictive model is shown. An optimisation technique is described that minimises the number of staff required in order to meet expected demand using a user input series of shift definitions. A tool is created that contains both the demand profiling and optimisation functions described. The effectiveness of this tool is then shown by application to the shift allocation of Police personnel with results illustrating this provided.