Rural/Metro Corporation is a for-profit emergency services organization — the second-largest in the country — providing emergency medical transportation, non-emergency general medical transportation to healthcare facilities and health management organizations, fire protection services, including community, airport, industrial and wildland specialties, and emergency training services to private and commercial enterprise throughout the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

. Currently Rural/Metro serves more than 400 communities nationwide. Rural/Metro was founded and is still based in Scottsdale

Scottsdale, Arizona

Scottsdale is a city in the eastern part of Maricopa County, Arizona, United States, adjacent to Phoenix. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, as of 2010 the population of the city was 217,385...

, Arizona

Arizona

Arizona ; is a state located in the southwestern region of the United States. It is also part of the western United States and the mountain west. The capital and largest city is Phoenix...

. Rural/Metro employs over 8,000 people and answers 1.5 million calls for service yearly. Rural/Metro also owns Southwest Ambulance of Arizona, however it no longer manages MedStar in Fort Worth

Fort Worth, Texas

Fort Worth is the 16th-largest city in the United States of America and the fifth-largest city in the state of Texas. Located in North Central Texas, just southeast of the Texas Panhandle, the city is a cultural gateway into the American West and covers nearly in Tarrant, Parker, Denton, and...

.

On March 2011, Warburg Pincus

Warburg Pincus

Warburg Pincus, LLC is an American private equity firm with offices in the United States, Europe, Brazil and Asia. It has been a private equity investor since 1966...

 has announced plans of acquiring Rural/Metro. .

Police Services

In 1975 Rural/Metro contracted with Oro Valley to provide its police services, but the arrangement was challenged by the Arizona Law Enforcement Officers Advisory Council, which argued that under Arizona law an employee of a private firm could not be a police officer. Rural Metro, not wishing in incur the legal fees needed to fight the challenge, ended the arrangement in 1977. Nonetheless, during the time in which it operated, burglary rates in the 3.5 square miles (9.1 km²) town dropped from 14 to 0.7 per month and stayed at that level.

See also

• Emergency medical services
  Emergency medical services
  Emergency medical services are a type of emergency service dedicated to providing out-of-hospital acute medical care and/or transport to definitive care, to patients with illnesses and injuries which the patient, or the medical practitioner, believes constitutes a medical emergency...
  
  
• Rescue
  Rescue
  Rescue refers to responsive operations that usually involve the saving of life, or prevention of injury during an incident or dangerous situation....
  
  
• Ambulance
  Ambulance
  An ambulance is a vehicle for transportation of sick or injured people to, from or between places of treatment for an illness or injury, and in some instances will also provide out of hospital medical care to the patient...
  
  
• 911 Contracts
• Public Utility Model
  Public Utility Model
  Public Utility Model , is an Emergency Medical Service system. In a Public Utility Model system, the government is a "purchaser" of Dispatchers, EMT’s and Paramedic providers from a EMS provider . In most cases, this is a private ambulance company...