Not gonna lie, Its looking like a pretty bleak future for patrol (and the rest of the PD). The only thing we've actually been promised is a new car, which will only be accessible by patrol supervisors, and a Van for corporals. Both of which will be replacing the Cadillac Escalade however which is a massive con in my eyes.
I have a few ideas, but be prepared, some as opposed to additional benefits for patrol by adding new stuff will be idea's involving taking away from RTU.
A few idea's for patrol of mine include:
They should stay 1 step ahead of other officers in armoury progression regarding handguns:
For example: A patrol officer will have access to the P99 alongside the glock and M9 by default, whilst an RTU officer will just have the glock and M9 til they reach senior. A patrol Sgt will have access to the USP40, the P226, The M9, The Glock 17, and P99, as well as the glock 20, whilst a traffic officer ranked Sgt will also have access to these weapons except the Glock 20. This won't apply for the shotgun which should remain Cpl+.
Vehicles:
All vehicles except the Lt. Car should remain division specific. For example, RTU should have no access to any of the dodge chargers and the likes, and should remain with just the unmarked, The porsche, the BMW, and the Merc.
RTU Vehicles should be faster than patrol ones of course but come with the downside of fuel consumption, Requiring more skill to handle, and less ramming power, due to the RTU Vehicle lineup being sports vehicles essentially, whilst Patrol Vehicles are muscle cars (except the crown vic). RTU Cars as a result of their additional speed should also come at the downside of having less HP than patrol vehicles. This will encourage RTU to utilise training and experience in order to not wreck cars and demonstrate that they are worthy of traffic duties.
Something that's always confused me about RTU is why having specific traffic officers is even a thing on a server which features like 2 stretches of highway total and why it takes an application and an assessment just to have slightly faster cars, a speed camera, and some folding barricades (which are never used). The only useful aspect of RTU is the "Special" vehicles, like the unmarked car and the Merc interceptor. Even then, to use these vehicles, they could have just created a sub division specialising in pursuit tactics and high speed chases, similar to how they made a sub division for additional firearms and special weapons.