Seattle Police Call Response Times and Dispatch Records

Seattle Police Department data logs records of Calls for Service from the community and officer observations. The dataset includes over 95% of all calls, with records updated incrementally on a daily basis and a full refresh twice a year. It is provided by the City of Seattle's open data portal.

Use Cases

• Analyze SPD response efficiency by modeling First SPD Call Sign Response Time (s) against Call Type Received Classification and Dispatch Reporting Area.
• Compare service time allocation by calculating Call Sign Total Service Time (s) across different CAD Event Response Categories.
• Identify patterns in multi-unit responses by examining the relationship between Count Of Officers, Co-Response Call Sign Total Service Time (s), and CARE Call Sign Total Service Time (s).
• Assess dispatch delay variability using features like First SPD Call Sign Dispatch Delay Time (s) and First Co-Response Call Sign Dispatch Delay Time (s).

Strengths

• Contains over 95% of all calls for service, a significant increase from previous versions which withheld approximately 40%.
• Updated incrementally on a daily basis with a full refresh process twice a year.

Limitations

• Location data is limited to the beat level (Dispatch Reporting Area), with no latitude and longitude provided.
• Excludes calls that were queued but cleared before an officer could respond.
• Contains administrative call types requiring careful selection using Initial and Final call type fields for analysis.

Provenance

Source

Seattle Police Department (SPD) Communications Center, via City of Seattle open data.

Collection Method

Queried from the Data Analytics Platform (DAP) based on logged Calls for Service.

Freshness

Updated daily; last updated 2026-04-03.

Geography

City of Seattle, Washington, USA.