Public safety · Case study

Inside LAPD's drone as first responder program

A vendor case study reporting that LAPD drones arrived on scene ahead of patrol units on 73 percent of dispatched calls during the pilot, which the department cited in converting to a permanent unit.

Key takeaways

  • Arrival-ahead-of-units is the headline metric agencies track.
  • Pilot programs convert to permanent units on measured outcomes.
  • Figures come from the vendor, so read them as vendor-reported.

Why it matters for pilots in training

Concrete numbers to benchmark against, with the caveat that a supplier published them.