Contact

GlossaryDispatch and call records

Unit status

Unit status records a response resource’s operational state, such as assigned or on scene. Learn how it differs from incident status and what timestamps can establish.

Unit status is the recorded operational state of a response resource at a particular time. Examples include available, assigned, responding, on scene, and clear of an assignment. The exact values depend on the agency. A status describes the resource's recorded state; it is different from the overall incident's status or the outcome of an investigation.

A changing record of resource activity

Dispatch systems track resources as they move through assignments. A status can be entered by communications staff following a radio message, transmitted by field personnel through a mobile terminal, or updated through an approved system process. Those methods can affect how closely the entry time matches the actual event.

Onondaga County describes field units using mobile data terminals to place themselves responding, on scene, and clear. This is a specific example of recording unit activity without a voice-radio message for each update. Onondaga County operations

The unit's timeline helps explain which resources were assigned and when they changed state. It does not automatically show staffing, clinical care, investigative work, or the reason for every delay. Those details may appear in other records.

Example

Hypothetical example: Unit E4 is assigned at 11:04, reports responding at 11:05, and reports on scene at 11:11. A second unit, E7, is assigned at 11:06 but canceled at 11:08. E4 clears at 11:30.

E4 and E7 have different status histories within one incident. E7's cancellation is not E4's arrival time, and E4's clear time is not necessarily the end of every agency's involvement. A single incident-level row may conceal these separate timelines.

Common confusion

Incident status can describe whether the event is open or closed. Unit status describes one resource. An incident can remain open after one unit becomes available, or have several units on scene simultaneously.

Clear usually concerns the end of a resource's assignment under local rules; it is not a crime clearance or a court finding. Available also needs a local definition: a resource's ability to accept another assignment may depend on operational restrictions beyond the displayed label.

Working with status times

Read the codebook and identify whether timestamps capture the event, a staff entry, or a later system import. For elapsed-time calculations, use the same unit and the correct start and end states. Missing transitions should remain missing unless a documented correction method applies. Do not substitute an incident's first arrival for every unit's arrival or count a canceled response as completed travel.

Sources