lafaayete ambulance(317) covers my area, and i noticed on their webpage, it shows two ambulances, one being ALS and one being BLS...and another vehicle between them, a chevy suburban, now, i know from residing here that we do not have a QRS unit, so who the heck is responsing in that other vehicle? that actual paramedic?...if th actual medic is responing i the suburban, then that means the ones in the ambulances are simply emt's right?....this twp, does not have a QRS unit. check out their site.
As was already mentioned, the supervisor car is so the supervising officer can respond secondarily to a major incident (large fire, major accidents, MCI's, etc). Plymouth Ambulance also has a supervisor vehicle, as do other ambulance services in the county.
In Montco, we don't typically have ALS chase cars (as they do in Chester and Delaware Counties). The ambulances are either "Basic" units or "Medic" units depending on the crew.
As far as QRS units in Montco...if a local fire company has the trained personnel, the money to buy the equipment, and a decent relationship with the local EMS service, they can get a QRS going. I don't really think that we need all the QRS units we have in this county, but that's just my personal opinion. None of our QRS units that I can think of off the top of my head respond to rural areas. In fact, there are lots of times when the ambulances beat the QRS units to a scene. Why the QRS even needs to continue in at that point, I don't know.
Here's what I can think of: QRS 10, QRS 33, QRS 56, QRS 62, QRS 80. Again,my personal take, but most of these units are in areas where there are large ems organizations whose members are also involved in the local fire companies. In Lincoln's case, they ran an actual ambulance for many years. When they disbanded that, some people there still wanted to be involved in EMS response.