I know for a fact, Police at present do not has this capability itself but it has access through army intelligence, and response is very quick within an hour or so. Phone doesnt need to be receiving calls, last turned on position and switched off location are quite accurate. They even has this ability to track the phone even if the SIM is removed from the phone through IMEI. You will be surprised, how many of robbery, high value decoities when duffers stolen phones as part of crime actually led to their detection.
on general note, standby phone is always pinging the nearest location tower with almost full details of the phone distance, its battery level, signal level, gps position if it has one, etc etc. Phone network will have its location track as it goes through from one micro cell to another cell!
Every tower has several radios attached to it not just one. each with different direction, once you get the direction and distance location is narrowed down even without GPS. Then they can run a scanners that locate phones even if they are switched off 
but that will be available for high value targets
