Why pay someone to stand in an empty building all night?
That question is behind most mobile patrol bookings in Metro Vancouver. A static guard costs the same whether something happens or not. For a closed warehouse, a fenced yard or a building between tenants, you are buying eight hours of presence to cover a risk that lasts minutes.
Mobile patrol splits that cost across several properties. Here is how it works, what it covers, and when it is the wrong choice.
What a patrol visit actually is
A marked vehicle arrives at your property. The officer gets out.
That second part matters. "We drove past" is not a patrol, and some providers sell it as one.
A real visit means walking the perimeter, checking gates and ground-floor doors, looking at anything that has changed since the last pass, and logging it with a time stamp and photographs.
Why the timing is random
If your patrol arrives at 11pm and 3am every night, you have published a schedule.
Anyone watching the property for a week knows exactly when nobody is there. The patrol has become a timetable.
Randomised timing is the whole mechanism. Two visits at unpredictable hours deter more than four visits on a fixed clock.
Ask any provider how they randomise, and ask to see logs that prove it.
Where it works well in Metro Vancouver
Industrial and warehouse. Buildings holding stock, empty from six in the evening. Our warehouse security guide covers the detail.
Construction sites. Consistently the most targeted property type in the region. Copper, tools and fuel all move easily. See construction site theft.
Strata parkades. The recurring complaint in almost every residential building. A randomised overnight pass costs a fraction of staffing the lobby.
Vacant units. Between tenants, mid-renovation, or awaiting redevelopment. Insurers increasingly attach conditions to these, and a logged patrol record is what satisfies them.
Multi-property portfolios. If you manage several buildings, one route covering all of them costs far less than separate arrangements.
Retail after hours. Closed units where the risk is entry attempts and doorway sheltering.
When patrol is the wrong answer
Being straight about this saves everyone time.
If there are people on your site, patrol is not enough. Between passes nobody is there, and the gap is the whole point of the trade-off.
If you need someone to control a door continuously, that is a static post, not a patrol.
If your risk runs the entire shift rather than clustering, you are better off staffing it.
And if the real problem is a broken fence, a dead light or a door that does not lock, fix that first. A site assessment will tell you, and a provider who says so is worth keeping.
What it costs
Mobile patrol is priced per visit or per month rather than per hour, because the vehicle and officer are shared across client sites.
For most Metro Vancouver commercial properties, nightly patrol coverage costs considerably less than a single staffed shift. The exact number depends on how many visits you want, how long each takes, and where you are on the route.
Two things to ask:
How many properties does one vehicle cover per night? Too many and your site gets a drive-past.
What does the log look like? You want GPS-verified time stamps and photographs, delivered promptly, not a summary at month end. If an insurance claim or a police report follows, that log is your evidence.
Our cost guide covers the wider pricing picture.
Coverage across the region
We patrol Vancouver and New Westminster, and cover the wider Metro Vancouver area from there. Response and routing depend on where your property sits, and we will tell you honestly rather than quote one number for everywhere.
Elsewhere in BC, see our Okanagan patrol guide and Vancouver Island coverage.
Before you sign
Check the security business licence number. Check that assigned officers hold current worker licences. Ask for the insurance certificate rather than a figure in an email. Ours is $2M CAD in comprehensive general liability.
Then ask whether any part of the contract will be subcontracted, and get the answer in writing. Subcontracting is how you end up with a company you never vetted on your property at 3am.
Talk to us
Fireball Security has operated across British Columbia since 2020, with 100+ licensed guards serving 100+ clients. Every patrol visit is logged with GPS verification and photographs.
See our mobile patrol service, request a quote, or call 250-899-6620.
