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Shift rotation patterns, explained
Almost all round-the-clock work runs on one of a few common shift schedules. The same ones show up in police patrol, fire and EMS, dispatch, corrections, nursing, plants, utilities, transport and security. Each page below shows the cycle day by day, the hours it adds up to, who works it, and the good and bad parts. Any of them can be saved in BlueShifts — a police shift calendar that fills your shift schedule in for you — and repeated for as long as you need.
24/48 and 48/96 schedules
ABC shift, ABC Kelly, modified 24/48
Two ways to cover a twenty-four hour post with three crews: one tour then two days off, or two tours then four days off.
24/72 schedule
One twenty-four hour tour, three days off — the four-platoon answer to firefighter fatigue.
3-4 4-3 schedule
Three on, four off, four on, three off — twelve-hour shifts on a two-week cycle, with every other weekend free by design.
3 on 3 off schedule
Three twelve-hour shifts, three days off, repeating — the simplest 12-hour pattern after 4 on 4 off, and a favourite of smaller departments.
4/10 schedule
four tens, 4x10, 4-3 schedule, 4 on 3 off, 4-3 4-3 days and nights
Four ten-hour shifts, three days off, every week. The most common compressed schedule in American law enforcement.
4 on 2 off schedule
4-2 schedule
Four eight-hour shifts, two days off — the classic three-squad rotation, and one of the oldest patterns in policing.
4 on 4 off schedule
4D4O4N4O, 4 days 4 off 4 nights 4 off, Continental 12-hour (4-crew)
Four twelve-hour shifts, then four days off. The simplest of the 24/7 rotations to hold in your head, and one of the hardest to fit into a normal week.
5-5 2-2 schedule
2-2 5-5, 2 on 2 off 5 on 5 off
Five on, five off, two on, two off. Fourteen days, seven of them worked, on eleven-hour shifts — and every other weekend off by design.
5-2 5-3 schedule
5-2 5-2 5-3, 5 on 2 off 5 on 3 off
Five on, two off, five on, three off. A fifteen-day cycle that has run American patrol divisions for decades.
5 on 2 off schedule
5-2 schedule, permanent days
Five shifts, two days off, the same tour every week — the ordinary working week, and for a lot of officers the schedule they bid toward.
5 on 3 off schedule
Five eight-hour shifts, three days off — a familiar working week with an extra day on the end, usually inside a very long rotation.
6 on 2 off schedule
6-2 schedule
Six shifts, two days off — the harder half of the 6 on family, and a common plant and security rotation.
6 on 3 off schedule
6-3 schedule
Six shifts, three days off — a long block for a long break, and a pattern that never repeats on the same weekday.
7 on 7 off schedule
week-on week-off, 7/7 rotation
A full week of twelve-hour shifts, then a full week off — the trade is a brutal run for a genuinely free week.
9/80 schedule
5-2 4-3, 5/4-9 plan, nine-day fortnight
Eighty hours across nine days instead of ten, with every other Friday off — the standard compressed schedule across federal and local government.
California Swing
One tour, three days off, two tours, three days off — the fire service alternative to the Kelly, on the same nine-day cycle.
Continental schedule
Eight-hour tours that move through days, swings and nights every two or three shifts — the fastest rotation in common use.
DuPont schedule
A four-week cycle of twelve-hour shifts that ends in seven consecutive days off — the longest built-in break of any common rotation.
Kelly schedule
Three platoons, twenty-four hour tours, a nine-day cycle — the fire service standard. In policing, a Kelly Day usually means something different.
Panama schedule
2-2-3, 2-3-2, 2-2-3-2-2-3, fixed Panama, rotating Panama
Two on, two off, three on, two off, two on, three off. Twelve-hour shifts on a fourteen-day cycle, with crews rotating between days and nights.
Pitman schedule
2-2-3 12-hour, Pitman fixed, Pitman rotating, Pitman days, Pitman nights
The same two on, two off, three on cadence as Panama — but your crew stays on days or stays on nights instead of rotating between them.
Southern Swing schedule
Seven days, two off, seven swings, two off, seven nights, three off. Eight-hour tours, a week at a time.
3/12 schedule
3 on 4 off, three twelves, 3x12
Three twelve-hour shifts, four days off, and the same days every week — the shortest full-time week on a twelve-hour tour.
2 on 2 off schedule
2-2 rotation
Two twelve-hour shifts, two days off, over and over — the shortest continuous cycle in use, and the one that never lands the same way twice.
5 on 4 off schedule
5-4 rotation
Five ten-hour shifts then four days off — a nine-day cycle that buys a long weekend every time round, at the price of never landing on the same days.
8 on 6 off schedule
8-6 rotation
Eight ten-hour shifts then six days off — a fortnight cycle that trades the longest run in policing for the longest ordinary break.
DDNNOO schedule
2-2-2 days and nights
Two day shifts, two night shifts, two days off — six days from start to repeat, and the fastest flip between days and nights of any named pattern.
Fast 12 schedule
DDNNOOOO, 2-2-2 4-off, 2 days 2 nights 4 off, DDNN 4 off, 2D2N4O, 12-hour Continental
Two days, two nights, four off — eight days round, forty-two hours a week, and a four-day break every cycle.
24/48/24/96 schedule
24-48-24-96, modified Kelly, 24/24/96, two tours in eight days
Two twenty-four hour tours inside eight days — one tour, two days off, another, then four days clear.
BlueShifts. Plan Your Year. Own Your Time.
The shift calendar built for your rotation, off-duty work, and life on and off the clock.
Save this pattern once and the year fills itself in — forward as far as you want, and back over the months you have already worked.
Your agency posts the roster in its own system — PlanIt, TeleStaff and your own calendar covers how the two fit together. If you want something to pin up in the briefing room, there are printable flyers. Every pattern on this page is also published as an open dataset — JSON and CSV, free to use.
Doing it without an app
A rotation can be put into Apple or Google Calendar, generated in a spreadsheet, or drawn on the kitchen wall. Each of those works up to a point, and each gives up somewhere specific.
In Apple Calendar · In Google Calendar · In a spreadsheet · On paper
It is called a compressed work week here
If you have been looking for your rotation under an American name and not finding it, that is why. In Canadian policing the whole idea has a different label: the compressed work week, and it is a named article in the collective agreement rather than a scheduling habit. Both the Toronto Police Association agreement and the OPP uniform agreement carry one, and in the OPP's case the terms of a compressed work week agreement are themselves subject to the grievance procedure.
That matters for a practical reason. In a Canadian service the rotation is a bargained term. It does not change because a new inspector prefers a different chart — it changes when the parties agree to change it.
What a compressed work week actually looks like is not uniform, and it need not be uniform inside one service either. The Toronto Police Association agreement carries both a Compressed Work Week and Revised Shift Schedules article and a separate Shift Schedules schedule — the plural is the point. Where a service runs more than one, which one you work can depend on where you are posted, and the answer is in the agreement rather than in a general rule.
Three different regimes, depending on who employs you
“Canadian policing” is not one scheduling system. Which set of rules governs your roster depends on whether your service is municipal, the RCMP, or federal.
- A municipal or provincial service works under provincial employment standards with a compressed work week article in the collective agreement. That is the Ontario picture above, and the equivalent exists across the provinces.
- The RCMP works under a single national agreement with the Treasury Board. Its default is plain: the workweek applies to a Member who is assigned by the Employer to work forty (40) hours from Monday to Friday inclusively, and the workday shall consist of a minimum of eight (8) consecutive hours — with separate articles for variable work and shift work that take you off that default. Detachment rosters run anywhere from eight to twelve hours. One agreement, from Newfoundland to the Yukon.
- Federal enforcement uses a different mechanism again: the Variable Shift Schedule Arrangement, or VSSA. It is negotiated branch by branch under the collective agreement rather than set force-wide, so two ports of entry can run genuinely different rosters under the same contract.
Quebec does averaging differently, and more strictly
Where the rest of the country averages hours, Quebec staggers them — étalement des heures — and the conditions are tighter than an Ontario averaging agreement. Under the Act respecting labour standards, staggering runs over a maximum of four weeks, the agreement must be in writing at least 30 days before the first period it covers, it lasts no more than six months, and a week may not exceed the standard by more than ten hours.
The protection underneath it is the part worth knowing: consent must be free and voluntary, and an employer could not make consent to staggered hours a condition of employment. Either side can end the arrangement on two weeks' notice. Where staggering is written into a collective agreement, the CNESST's authorisation is not needed — which is the usual position in a policing or fire service.
Quebec's regulator is the CNESST rather than a ministry of labour, and its standard work week is 40 hours with overtime at time and a half beyond it and no daily trigger.
One provision is worth knowing whichever regime you are in. The RCMP agreement states that the implementation of any variation in hours shall not result in any additional overtime — a rearranged roster is not, by itself, a pay rise. Provincial averaging agreements do the same job in the same way.
Checked 7 August 2026. Quoted from the collective agreements, statutes and regulators named above. Agreements are renegotiated and employment standards are amended — confirm the current text before relying on a figure or a threshold.
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