How does your company number its ambulances?

Ours are numbers based on locale and are your radio/shift ID/station.

Usually a block of 100 numbers denotes region for front line trucks. Extra ALS crews are always 500s, standbys are P900s, extra BLS crews are always 600s.

Here we are 730-782 but not every number is used. Usually vehicle and radio ID match if we are in our assigned unit. Prob a quarter of us in are spares. Radio ID never changes. I'm always 733 but today I'm in vehicle 822.
 
In Southern NJ, I believe it is usually XXY-Z for BLS and fire departments. WIth XX being the town code or station number, and Y may indicate the type of vehicle (9 usually being an ambulance).

For ALS, they're typically number sequentially. Camden County medic units are numbered 41-46 and Burlington County medic units are 31-36 (referred to as "medic X". They'll add on if extra trucks are put up for some reason. Gloucester, Salem, and Cumberland county medic units are referred to as "life support" and are numbered 1-7. 1-4 are Gloucester County, 5 is Salem County, and 6 & 7 are Cumberland County. In Atlantic and Cape May county, they are numbered 1-20 (not sure) with some being dual role SCTU/ALS and others strictly being ALS. I believe they refer to ALS trucks as "medic". Mercer County (where Trenton is) refers to ALS trucks as "Life 79X", which is short for Life-mobile (X typically being 1-5 during peak hours).

Up north, it varies. I know a lot of the medic units are dispatched by MICCOM (Mobile intensive care communications?) and use "ALS XYZ" as identifiers. X = MICU #, Y= designates vehicle type (0=ALS chase car, 1= ALS ambulance), and Z is the number of the vehicle.
 
Basic rigs are the 500s
ALS rigs that report to the main station are 600s

ALS rigs that report to other stations are the 800s
 
We have 42 units numbered 1-42.

Then depending on the shift and staffing there's a prefix number in front of the unit number.

1 = Supervisor
2 = Community Health Paramedic
3 = Shift starts before 1200
4 = Shift starts after 1200
5 = Off duty management/supervisor in a POV
6 = ALS Special Events Ambulance
7 = B/ILS Special Events unit (Ambulance or non-transport capable unit)
8 = Transfer Ambulance (Always ALS)
9 = Extra unit (not normally scheduled, I'm 930 today working an 8 hour princess shift :) )

So 118 indicates its unit 18 and the medic is a supervisor. 218 indicates the medic is a CHP (they have regular response vehicles too, CP1 and CP2 when they're not working in the 911 system and they're just CHPing. Pimped out 2013 Ford Explorers.

We also have supervisor units that aren't transport capable. (173-176), then
763 and 765 for the BLS events crews, basically old wheelchair vans.
 
Units are numbered sequentially based on acquisition. In other words A-72 is our newest ambulance while A-15 is the oldest still in service. Medic units are preceded by an 'M' instead of an 'A' but otherwise do not have any special numbering system. NICU and CCT units are still prefixed with the 'A' however.

Pagers and radio call signs are tied to the unit. Thus if your in A-55 your call sign is Unit 55, but if you have to switch to a different rig (say for a Bariatric call) your radio call sign is now, oh say, unit 47.

Supervisor trucks are 100 series and Operations Support (older decommissioned ambulances filled with extra supplies) are single digits (though written on the side as a two digit I.e A-07)

Note that we are a non emergency IFT only company in LA Co (though one of the few who don't do primarily renal rodeo) so our dispatch only has to worry about our company, and not have to worry about fire or pd or other ambulance companies and other jurisdictions and whatnot
 
All of our fire departments and ambulance services have 4 digit codes, i.e. 1100, 1200, 1300, etc. The 2 zeros then typically indicate station and truck so say for example my service is Station 1200 and we operate 2 of our own garages(stations) numbered 10 and 20, then the final zero is truck number. 0-5 are typically used.

So the 24 hour truck at station 20 for my service would be 1220. The next truck would be 1221, and so on. 1210, 1211 for the station 10 trucks.

Most of the fire departments only operate 1 station so their numbers would be 1101, 1102, 1103 with the 4th number indication type of truck(engine, ladder, squad)
 
District #
9 - County wide ambulance designation
Then backwards from 9

For example, 899, 898, 897, etc...
 
My service was already covered in this thread.

My old place did PV 20x for day trucks and PV 25x for nights (most often with PV unspoken over the radio). We had three stations, with trucks entering and leaving service at "their" station but moving to others during the shift. 201/251 had shift change at 5, 202/252 at 6, 203/253 at 7, and 204/254 at 7:30. 205 and 206 were day only trucks, and 261 was night only on Thursday-Saturday (shift also began at 5). Not a bad system as you always knew who needed to be back at what station and when they hoped to get off.
 
Four digits

Two digit are designation (DFW is 86xx, Houston is 51xx)

Next is station identifier (1 is the main office, 2 is a substation, 3 is another substation)

Finally is truck number based on when it came up (1,2,3,4)

For instance 8631 is the second truck to be put up out of our Mesquite substation.
 
In our county we have station number and the ones I work at are station 40 and 43. So my truck numbers would be 400, 401. and 402. My other station is 430 and 431. Pretty simple
 
Medic 1-15 with other identifiers for the bariatric and neonate 30-31
 
In the order they're obtained/replaced, with our squad's number in front.

So 5-1, 5-2, etc. If 5-1 died and was replaced, the new truck would be lettered 5-1.
 
my company just has numbers for the rigs based, if i'm not mistaken, on when they got them (ex. 1 is the first ambulance the company bought, 50 is the newest) and the units we run are organized as 220's (LA county BLS), 260's (LA county ALS), and 420's (OC BLS). yesterday i worked 422 (second OC rig of the day)
 
We simply go by Care 1, and Care 2, and QRU (Quick Response Unit). Generally out Care units rotate every few years. The newest one goes up to Care 1, and they move down from there.
 
Our numbering system is province wide. All vehicles belonging to Designated Delivery Agents are assigned a number by the Ministry of Health's Emergency Health Services Branch.

1st digit (1-6) represents the MOH region. 7 is used for air ambulance

2nd digit represents number of stretchers. 0= 0 (administration [sr mgmt, mobile command unit]) 1= 1, 2 & 4= 2, 3= 0 (fly cars, supervisor) and 6= 1 Emergency First Response Team (true volunteers in remote areas that have FA/CPR, and are not permited to transport. Not many exist anymore.)

3rd & 4th digits are truck numbers. These are not necessarily sequential within a service and do not reflect time of purchase. Ex: 5119 is newer than 5432.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Our units are numbered by stations, volunteers are A#-1. County units are hundred stations (P200, P100,etc), reserves are 100 numbers , and the supervisor is EMS #. County units are listed as Paramedics when ALS (P100), and Ambulances when BLS (A100). We also identify volunteer units when upgraded by the same system. Several providers prefer to use Medic instead of Paramedic when they are Intermediate providers on board instead of Paramedics.
 
The NOVA (Northern Virginia/DC/Southern MD) region uses three digit numbers to ID apparatus. The first number is the jurisdiction, and the last two pertain to the station. A medic gets an "M" designation, and an ambulance gets a "A" identifier. A second unit out of the same station with the same identifier will be designated as "B" (Bravo). For example, Arlington has the 100 series, Fairfax has 400, Prince William has 500, etc.

A medic unit running out of station 1 in each of these respective jurisdictions would be M101, M401, and M501. BLS would be A101, A401, or A501. A second medic unit in each of these stations would be M101B, M401B, or M501B.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top