AAC from the Control POV. As far as response times are concerned, AAC does work. It takes a crew approximately a minute to get in the vehicle and leave station, so if they are mobile, that's a minute saved. However, it really doesn't matter *where* the mobile crew are. The Blue 8 software (the thing that is supposed to predict where the demand will be) fails to take into account the Law of Sod which states that wherever you send your crew, a call will come in at the opposite end of their patch. It is kind of useful in the "rural areas" (eg. getting a Romford out to Rainham/Upminster or a New Addington to Biggin Hill) but fairly pointless everywhere else. The worst thing for me is that it's another thing us control staff have to inflict on crews that they don't like, and another thing that creates the whole "us and them" feeling and conflict and grumpiness. Being the kind of person who likes to get along with crews, I tried to make it as easy as possible on them by asking if there was somewhere there would particularly like to go, and do you know what happened? An AOM rang the control room to complain about me. Apparently the crew had left the station "laughing and joking about AAC" (note that they LEFT THE STATION promptly which is more than most crews do when asked to go out and were LAUGHING which means they were happy, surely?) and this was a bad thing because we don't want happy crews, do we?? I was very annoyed by this. Also, on the topic of public perception, is it really going to do any good for the public to see lots of grumpy, sleepy crews twiddling their thumbs in their vehicles between calls? Wouldn't they be better off on station where they get some rest? I think management's next move may well be to switch off those pesky phone lines so we don't get any calls and can devote ourselves solely to giving crews breaks and putting them on AAC.