Which option correctly states the purpose of the 'alarm to arrival' metric?

• A. To measure the time from alarm receipt to hospital handoff.
• B. To track how quickly apparatus is fueled.
• C. To compare shifts' average response times across the week.
• D. The time from dispatch of the alarm to the unit arriving on the scene.

Answer: (D)

Alarm to arrival is the time interval from when the alarm is dispatched to the unit arriving on the scene. This directly measures how quickly responders mobilize and reach the incident, capturing the critical sprint from alert to on-scene presence. It reflects dispatch efficiency and travel time, which are the core parts of response performance. It does not include hospital handoff, which happens after arrival, nor the prearrival tasks like fueling, and it isn’t a comparison of shifts’ averages—that would be a different use of the data. For example, if a unit is alerted at 10:00 and arrives at 10:04, the alarm-to-arrival time is four minutes.