Police Vehicle and Related Equipment Procurement

Having an adequate, reliable emergency law enforcement department is vital to an urban city.  The Providence Police Department currently has 438 sworn members assigned to three different divisions. The police department currently has more than 50 vehicles eligible for replacement based on mileage, age, and condition.  Because the city does not have a consistent vehicle replacement plan, the current fleet of vehicles will soon be in a state of disrepair due to excessive use because of no down time. It is important to regularly replace police emergency vehicles. Not only does increased mileage and years of service increase maintenance costs, but it also decreases the vehicles' reliability.

The Patrol Bureau has over 250 officers assigned to it with only 90 marked vehicles for use on a 24/7 three-shift basis.  The oldest of the vehicles are fifty-four percent (54%) of them have over 100,000 miles on them and those miles do not include idle time.  The average idle hours on the Departments patrol cars on average is between 6,000 to 7,000 hours.  When converted to mileage, this adds an additional 200,000 to 240,000 miles per vehicle on top of the current odometer reading.  Additionally, the Detective Division has thirty (30) vehicles that are shared among over 100 officers ranging from model years 2006 through 2018 all with varying mileages and vehicle conditions.

 It should also be noted that the older model year vehicles average a downtime of upward to one week for more extensive repairs while the newer model vehicles are typically returned to service within an eight-hour window.  Clearly this shorter window of downtime and greater reliability leads to more productivity for our officers and a higher level of safety not only for the officers but for the citizens they serve.   It’s important to have reliable police vehicles. Police pursuit vehicles are the most common police cars equipped to handle most tasks, including pursuit and high-speed response calls.