I've been working for ProTransport-1 since August 2011.
The on call/part time schedule is not as bad as it sounds. Most new hires start off on call/part time without a regular schedule because the schedule is set in stone every three months; you have to wait until they write a new schedule. For new hires, you can still work full time hours by calling the scheduling department to ask them what is available, and pick up shifts.
ProTransport-1 also uses
EMS Staff Pro which can be found through their website at
www.protransport-1.com, click
EMPLOYEES, and then it's Traumasoft. It was Traumasoft before they changed it to EMS Staff Pro. If you click Traumasoft, it will take you to EMS Staff Pro. EMS Staff Pro contains information like phone numbers, policies, links to various county protocols, and your schedule. You can pick up shifts or substitute for others. There are a lot of available shifts to pick up.
Since my FTO time, I've been working full time hours without any problem getting shifts (I'm considered on call/part time right, I'll have a full time regular schedule by the end of this month). Last week was my first time working less than 35 hours (I worked 31 hours) because I started taking EMT Refresher so it made it more difficult for me to pick up shifts.
Since you mentioned Royal Ambulance and ProTransport-1, I assume you want to work in either Santa Clara County or Alameda County (ProTransport-1 is all of northern California, Royal is only in Santa Clara and Alameda). I was hired for the Santa Clara County station (station 61 - Palo Alto), but I did my training and picked up the majority of my shifts in Alameda County (station 51 - Richmond (located in Contra Costa County, but primarily does transports in Alameda County) , station 54 - Oakland, and station 55 - Hayward).
In Santa Clara, the majority of our calls are discharges, long distances, and CCT (NICU/PICU). We'll also transport the LifeFlight team. We rarely get any other type of calls (including dialysis). We have two dedicated rig for NICU/PICU transports, but only one dedicated crew at a time. If the dedicated crew is busy on a call, a BLS crew will pickup the second dedicated rig to run the call. It seems to happen regularly, but not regularly enough to have a second dedicated crew. It's usually pretty slow (<4 calls a day for a 10 hour shift). What kills us is if we get a lot of long distance calls at the same time, which has happened a couple of times.
In Alameda County, we get a variety of calls: discharges, dialysis, MRI, radiation, 5150s, and CCT. All the stations that work in Alameda County are moderately busy (I'd say 5-6 calls per 10 hour shift, if you work on a rig dedicated to a hospital, you could see about 7-10 calls a day). A lot of the transports are very short (e.g. Eden Medical Center to LifeHouse is only 0.2 miles, Eden Medical Center to John George Pavilion is 3.1 miles, Sutter Alta Bates - Ashby Campus to Sutter Herrick Hospital is 0.7 miles I think).
Starting is $9.50/hour and we also get paid per call and by distances (with a patient in the rig). If you work a day shift, you get $10/call. I think after 5 calls, you get $20/call. If you work graveyard, you get $15/call. I forget what it is for graveyard after a certain number of calls or if it stays like that (doubt it). We also get paid $10 for the first 50 miles, an additional $10 every 25 miles. My paychecks working 35-40 hours/week come out to be about $1,000-$1,200 every 2 weeks. So the folks that work in Alameda County get decent paychecks because of the call volume/short transport times. In Santa Clara, we get a decent paycheck because of the long distance calls we get, but still less than Alameda County unfortunately. The station in Santa Clara county (station 61 - Palo Alto) is a good station to work in if you're in school and want to study, but they do expect the call volumes to go up significantly since we have ALS now so that might change.
My experience at ProTransport-1 has been a good one so far.
When I went to San Jose City College for my EMT, I remembered all the students and some of the skill instructors saying "Don't work for WestMed, the EMTs there are dumb", other people saying "If you work for AMR, you're a good EMT", and stuff like that. At Chabot College, a lot of the EMT students only planned on becoming a firefighter, and AMR was practically the only ambulance company you could work for in the Hayward area (there was Royal Ambulance and WestMed, but they are pretty small). Unfortunately, I heard "ProTransport-1, the EMTs there are horrible!" Meeting people from different company, it's funny how you'd hear from a somebody who works at Royal Ambulance "NorCal EMTs are rude!", somebody who works at AMR "ProTransport-1 EMTs are a joke", etc. Without thinking about it, I believed them for a long time, and it's the reason I didn't apply to ProTransport-1 until after more than a year looking for an EMT job and even seriously considering moving out of the state, and I probably would have moved to if the person I was gonna move with didn't end up getting ill and dying. The reality of it is that regardless if you work for Royal Ambulance, WestMed, NorCal, Silicon Valley Ambulance, AMR, Rural/Metro, Golden State, ProTransport-1, Priority One, Merrit Ambulance, and anybody else that I forgot to mention, the EMTs are all the same pretty much. You got some EMTs that are horrible, and some that are pretty good. It doesn't matter which company you work for. The difference in company is probably gonna change the color of your uniform and the color your ambulance is. This is also true for EMTs in 9-1-1 or in interfacility transport (IFT, BLS transport, hospital to hospital, whatever you want to call it). I massively regret not applying to ProTransport-1 sooner (in parallel to applying just about everywhere else).
Apply to both; apply everywhere.