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Pitman vs 4 on 4 off
Both are twelve-hour rotations at forty-two hours a week. One keeps your weekends and your sleep pattern; the other gives you four days off at a time.
Pitman
Day shiftNight shift24-hour tourDay off
4 on 4 off
Day shiftNight shift24-hour tourDay off
| Pitman | vs | 4 on 4 off |
|---|---|---|
| The cycle | ||
| 12 hours | Shift length | 12 hours |
| 14 days | Cycle length | 8 or 16 days |
| 42 hours | Average week | 42 hours |
| 3 | Most shifts in a row | 4 |
| 3 days | Longest break | 4 days |
| Your week | ||
| Yes | Every other weekend off | No |
| Yes | Days off land on the same weekdays | NoThey walk forward each cycle |
| Yes | Standing weekly commitments possible | No |
| No | A four-day break every cycle | Yes |
| Sleep | ||
| YesDays or nights, permanently | Fixed tour, no changeover | NoMost versions flip mid-cycle |
| No | Four night shifts in a row | Yes |
Predictability against block time
Pitman is the most predictable twelve-hour pattern there is. Fourteen days divides evenly into the week, so your days off never move, and a fixed tour means your body clock never resets. Every other weekend is yours, permanently.
Four on four off gives you more usable time in a row — four days — and takes your weekends in exchange, because an eight-day cycle walks through the week and never settles.
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The night question
Under Pitman, a night crew stays a night crew. That is either the best or worst thing about it depending on which tour you draw and how you handle nights.
Most four on four off versions flip you between days and nights halfway through the sixteen-day cycle, and ask for four night shifts in a row when they do.
Which to bid
If anything in your life happens on the same day every week, Pitman. If you want four-day blocks and have nothing weekly to protect, four on four off.
Full detail on each pattern: Pitman schedule · 4 on 4 off schedule
In Canada this is a bargaining question
Everything above holds either side of the border — the cycles are the cycles. What changes here is who decides, and what the two cost.
A Canadian service does not simply adopt a rotation. The schedule sits in the collective agreement as a compressed work week article, and the Toronto Police Association and OPP agreements both carry one. In the OPP's case the terms of a compressed work week agreement are themselves subject to the grievance procedure. So moving from Pitman to 4 on 4 off is not a decision a new inspector makes — it is bargained, and it stays until it is bargained again.
It also does not follow that a whole service runs one of them. The Toronto Police Association agreement carries a Shift Schedules schedule in the plural, so which one you work can depend on where you are posted. The answer is in the agreement.
What the province still decides
Both of these run the same shift length, so provincial overtime rules treat them alike — but the rules themselves differ. Ontario triggers overtime after 44 hours in a week and has no daily trigger. British Columbia triggers after 8 hours in a day or 40 in a week, with double time past 12. Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Newfoundland and Labrador calculate it at 1.5 times the minimum wage rather than your own rate. Where the cycle does not fit a calendar week, hours can be averaged over two to four weeks by written agreement — and in a unionised service, your union makes that agreement.
Checked 7 August 2026. Provincial rules are quoted from the Employment Standards Act of the province named and, for Quebec, from the CNESST; federal provisions from the Treasury Board agreements. Employment standards are amended and collective agreements are renegotiated — check the current text before relying on a threshold or a figure.
The shift schedule you actually work
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