What Is a CAD/MDT System? The Plain Guide for Roleplay Servers

If you have joined a police roleplay server and watched someone type a call into a browser tab, you have seen a CAD/MDT in action. The name sounds technical. The idea is simple.

A CAD/MDT system tracks who is on duty, what calls are open, which unit is assigned to each one, and what happened afterward. Real agencies use them. Roleplay communities copy the concept because the alternative is a Discord channel full of people shouting unit numbers at each other.

Here is what it means, what it does, and how to run one without it becoming a second job.

What CAD/MDT Actually Stands For

CAD means Computer Aided Dispatch. MDT means Mobile Data Terminal. They are two halves of the same workflow, and most roleplay platforms bundle them into one product, which is why you almost never see the terms apart.

The CAD side

CAD is the dispatcher view. It holds the call queue and the unit roster. When a call comes in, the dispatcher creates it, picks a priority, and assigns units. Everything gets a timestamp. In the real world, that timestamp trail becomes the legal record of a response. On your server, it becomes the thing your admins read when two players disagree about who arrived first.

The MDT side

MDT is the officer view. It is the terminal in the car. You run a plate, pull a person's record, attach yourself to a call, update your status, and file the report when you clear. In a real cruiser it is a laptop bolted to the dash. On your server it is a browser tab.

Together they give you one shared source of truth for the shift. Dispatch sees what officers do. Officers see what dispatch knows.

Most of that traffic happens during a stop, and the beat by beat traffic stop workflow shows exactly where each lookup lands.

Why Roleplay Servers Bother With One

Grand Theft Auto V passed 215 million units shipped in Take Two's fiscal 2025 results, and FiveM broke 200,000 concurrent players on Steam in 2025. Police and EMS roleplay is one of the biggest slices of that traffic.

The paperwork problem

Once a server passes about fifteen active officers, memory stops working. Somebody arrests a player on Tuesday. On Friday a different officer stops the same player and has no idea a warrant is open. Without records, every scene starts from zero.

A CAD/MDT fixes that by making the record the default output of playing. You already stopped the car. Filing the stop takes eight seconds. Now it exists forever.

The immersion problem

Typing your radio status into a Discord channel is not roleplay. Clicking Available on a status board that dispatch can actually see is. Systems that mirror real procedure pull people deeper into character, because the friction of the job becomes part of the fiction.

What a Good CAD/MDT Does While You Play

These are the parts that change how a shift feels.

Calls, units, and status

Every call carries a location, a type, a priority, and an assignment history. Every unit carries a callsign and a status. When those two talk to each other, you get a live picture of who is working what.

Records that persist

Citizens, vehicles, warrants, citations, arrest reports, incident narratives. Search should be forgiving, because nobody types a full plate correctly at 2am. Good systems let you jump from a plate to an owner to their history in two clicks.

Roles that match your ranks

Your command staff should not share a permission level with a probationary officer. A workable system maps departments, ranks, and permissions onto the structure you already use, from a settings page instead of a config file.

The Dispatch Seat Almost Nobody Fills

Ask a community owner which position they cannot staff and the answer is dispatch, every time.

That is not a discipline problem. People join police roleplay to drive, work scenes, and talk on the radio, and the dispatch chair asks them to do none of those. Most servers therefore run without one, and a queue with no scheduler produces the predictable result: three units on the same traffic stop while a robbery sits open for eleven minutes.

You cannot pay a dispatcher, and you should not try to guilt one into the seat. The software has to cover it.

How automatic routing solves it

Automatic call routing reads the queue, reads the unit roster, and assigns work without a human in the middle. PlateNet CAD/MDT attaches an available unit to an open call, respects priority so a pursuit outranks a parking complaint, flags units that sit in one status too long, and lets an officer claim a call straight from the MDT.

Self dispatch stops being improvised and becomes a workflow. Read more in the guide to automatic dispatch and call routing.

Setting Up a CAD/MDT on Your Server

What you need before day one

Three things. A place to host it, an identity provider so people log in as themselves, and a department structure you have agreed on.

Most communities already have the third one written down somewhere in Discord. Agree on it before you start creating ranks, because renaming departments after fifty people have callsigns is a bad afternoon. If you run on FiveM, the FiveM setup guide covers how the pieces fit together.

What to skip at first

Do not build twelve custom report templates before your first patrol. Turn on calls, units, and citizen records. Run two shifts. Then add what your officers asked for. Servers that over configure on day one usually abandon the system by week three.

The admin side of running a CAD/MDT goes deeper on permissions and audit logs.

Frequently Asked Questions

What does CAD/MDT mean?

CAD/MDT means Computer Aided Dispatch and Mobile Data Terminal. CAD is the dispatcher side that manages calls and assignments. MDT is the officer side used to run plates, look up people, and file reports.

What is a CAD/MDT system in GTA?

In GTA V roleplay, a CAD/MDT is a web application or in game panel that police, fire, and EMS players use to log calls, track units, and store records. It is not part of the base game. Servers add it alongside their FiveM setup.

Do I need a dispatcher to use a CAD/MDT?

No. Systems with automatic routing and self dispatch assign calls to available units on their own. A human dispatcher improves the experience, but the server keeps working without one.

Is a CAD/MDT the same as a dispatch script?

They overlap but they are not the same. A dispatch script sends alerts inside the game. A CAD/MDT keeps persistent records, handles roles and permissions, and works outside the game too. Most communities run both and let only one of them own the call queue.

Can I use a CAD/MDT outside of FiveM?

Yes. The workflow is platform agnostic, so communities running Roblox emergency response games, Arma, or text roleplay use the same tools. The multi platform guide covers what changes.

How much does a CAD/MDT cost?

Free tiers work fine for small communities. Paid plans usually start in the low tens of dollars per month and scale with member count. Hosting your own is cheaper in cash and more expensive in time.