How to provide a location to 999

[si404]

The marketing is to get the public to download it and then, as they have it, to use it for contact with those who will pay - like UBER Eats, Just Eat, Deliveroo who are their target for paying customers.

But, unless you are not in a building, no one is going to use W3W for these. We have a decent addressing system (as does pretty much everywhere in the developed world).

And even if you want delivery to a park/field there's loads of other methods to give your location via your phone's GPS - UBER certainly has a system integrated into the app (not tried the other apps).

If you think that commercial interests don't give apps for free think again - Facebook, twitter........

We're the product in those two cases.

I remember the days when free Spotify was unlimited plays and about an ad about every 30-45 minutes and then it became an ad every roughly 5-10 minutes and you could only play a particular song a set number of times before you couldn't play it again as they needed to nudge people onto the paid version! I remember the days when news/comment sites didn't limit your free articles (or at least were more generous with the limit), or make you turn your ad-blocker off, or both - as they now do.

Free access to internet stuff decays as:
1) they become well used and established in the market - rather than trying to build a name, they reach the point where they try and use their name to make money.
2) the company realises they need to monetise it or the investors will be mad.

If W3W is reliant on people using it in conjunction with apps that already have different ways of doing location already, then it's a dead-end technology that will go bust and disappear unless some philanthropist buys the database at a knock down rate and makes it open access, or the developing world addressing makes enough money.

 

[fireftrm]

As they say, if you're not the customer, you're the product... (Facebook, etc. look at what you're doing, and say 'who wants to advertise to this guy?') W3W's service is more valuable to those who will pay if they can say 'millions have downloaded it' - if you're one of them, you're part of W3W's offering.

Just wondering if those emergency services (like Notts & Debyshire FRSs) who participated in W3W's #KnowExactlyWhere campaign got anything for their efforts...

No they didn't and neither have any others, indeed they were quite reluctant to endorse w3w, as any other product, for some time until its benefits became abundantly clear to them

 

[najaB]

If W3W is reliant on people using it in conjunction with apps that already have different ways of doing location already, then it's a dead-end technology that will go bust and disappear...

This, more than anything. They aren't doing anything new or innovative. They are just doing translation, but rather than English -> French/Spanish/Klingon they're translating to an invented language that nobody else uses, and they're the only ones with the dictionaries.

 

[OneOffDave]

Passing a full Lat and Long or OS grid ref in an emergency accurately is difficult for the majority of people who don't regularly use them. It's also no use just relying on the phone location as that may not be where you actually need the response to go to esp if mobile phone coverage in the area is poor. It's tricky for humans to remember strings of digits that are more than 10 long whereas words are much easier.
My cousin's riding school has on the wall above the phone the OS GR and W3W for the access point to the farm, the best helicopter landing site on the farm and the nearest water supply for fire fighting. The stable girls can cope well with the W3W but not the numbers

What would be a good system that could be used by practically anyone with minimal advanced knowledge/training in times of high stress? It must be able to locate any point in the UK with reasonable precision and not rely on mobile phone signal being available at the incident location

I think the big market for W3W will be in countries without a structured postal system where the addressing process is idiosyncratic to say the least. One organisation I dealt with was at "The old building behind the cinema" in the town where they were based

Oh, just a quick reminder for people going on about the 'secret' profit motive and the emergency services. None of their control room systems and software is provided free, it's all commercial products. A visit to one of the big Blue Light trade fairs is very interesting

 

[mmh]

I think the big market for W3W will be in countries without a structured postal system where the addressing process is idiosyncratic to say the least. One organisation I dealt with was at "The old building behind the cinema" in the town where they were based

You mean Wales? I say that only half jokingly. It sounds like something searching for a market of people with high smartphone and mobile Internet availability but with no phone signal. I'm not convinced that's as huge as its fans say.

Passing a full Lat and Long or OS grid ref in an emergency accurately is difficult for the majority of people who don't regularly use them.

That's true, I imagine the proportion of people who give coordinates on a 999 call will be close to zero.

It's also no use just relying on the phone location as that may not be where you actually need the response to go to esp if mobile phone coverage in the area is poor. It's tricky for humans to remember strings of digits that are more than 10 long whereas words are much easier.

But they need to rely on the phone location to know what three words to say. So what's the point?

 

[OneOffDave]

You mean Wales? I say that only half jokingly. It sounds like something searching for a market of people with high smartphone and mobile Internet availability but with no phone signal. I'm not convinced that's as huge as its fans say.

Chunks of the developing world seemed to have skipped the fixed wide scale telephony and internet stage on gone straight to mobile and outside of the centres of population coverage is patchy so something like this will still work. IIRC Mongolia is using it as its 'postcode' system and there's talk of some of the public health reporting systems in DRC and Ethiopia using it to allow automatic importing into their GIS reporting systems for outbreak visualisation. Must be remembered that not many countries have something as detailed, mature and well known as the OS national grid

But they need to rely on the phone location to know what three words to say. So what's the point?

They need to know where the phone was at the incident site, not when they make the call. Someone falls up a hill with no signal so you get out your phone and note the words. One of the party walks to the farmhouse in the valley and calls with the landline. The 999 operator knows where the phone is but that's not where the casualty is. If you're unprepared and haven't got a pen, then easier to memorise the words. Not ideal but it's a solution

 

[najaB]

Oh, just a quick reminder for people going on about the 'secret' profit motive and the emergency services. None of their control room systems and software is provided free, it's all commercial products.

Indeed, the software is not free and nobody expects that it will be - people will have written the software and should be fairly compensated. The digits 0-9, the decimal point and the concept of latitude and longitude, however are free (in both the "lunch" and "speech" senses of the word) - W3W's database and algorithms are not, so using it potentially represents another cost on top of the software and systems.

Must be remembered that not many countries have something as detailed, mature and well known as the OS national grid

I must've imagined what the first letter in GPS stands for...

 

[fireftrm]

W3W's database and algorithms are not, so using it potentially represents another cost on top of the software and systems.

As in an earlier post I corrected myself as I have checked and w3w is completely free to all emergency services

Passing a full Lat and Long or OS grid ref in an emergency accurately is difficult for the majority of people who don't regularly use them.

You need to include emergency service staff in this too, mountain rescue and HM Coastguard being the exceptions, on th egorund Police, FRS and Ambulance staff would be unlikely to be any bteer in translating grid references, or giving them

 

[OneOffDave]

Indeed, the software is not free and nobody expects that it will be - people will have written the software and should be fairly compensated. The digits 0-9, the decimal point and the concept of latitude and longitude, however are free (in both the "lunch" and "speech" senses of the word) - W3W's database and algorithms are not, so using it potentially represents another cost on top of the software and systems.
I must've imagined what the first letter in GPS stands for...

To get the same accuracy as a 6 figure OS grid ref you need 16 digits of lat and long so that's not ideal. Obviously W3W isn't there to replace everything, I can't reduce a sun sight to W3W, that has to be lat and long and UK paper maps work really well with the OS grid ref but for passing locations by untrained individuals in high stress situations I've yet to see a better system. The Emergency Services control rooms seem to find it useful from conversations I've had with them so that's a reasonable benchmark from me.

 

[Meerkat]

To get the same accuracy as a 6 figure OS grid ref you need 16 digits of lat and long so that's not ideal. Obviously W3W isn't there to replace everything, I can't reduce a sun sight to W3W, that has to be lat and long and UK paper maps work really well with the OS grid ref but for passing locations by untrained individuals in high stress situations I've yet to see a better system. The Emergency Services control rooms seem to find it useful from conversations I've had with them so that's a reasonable benchmark from me.

I might know exactly where I am on a paper map, and I know how to work out a grid reference, but I wouldn’t fancy having to find the grid reference from a map folded into a map case (the grid numbers are never on the bit you want....) in bad weather up a mountain, and then have to remember it whilst reading it out over the phone in a howling gale.
My only concern would be not having an easy way to cross reference the W3W ref to an OS map as a sense check.

 

[najaB]

As in an earlier post I corrected myself as I have checked and w3w is completely free to all emergency services

Today.

The Emergency Services control rooms seem to find it useful from conversations I've had with them so that's a reasonable benchmark from me.

I've no doubt that they're useful, the problem I have with it is that they imply that they have somehow solved an intractable problem when in reality they just provide a different way to encode geocoordinates.

 

[si404]

I might know exactly where I am on a paper map, and I know how to work out a grid reference, but I wouldn’t fancy having to find the grid reference from a map folded into a map case (the grid numbers are never on the bit you want....) in bad weather up a mountain, and then have to remember it whilst reading it out over the phone in a howling gale.

but you don't need to do that. You do exactly the same thing as with W3W - open an app, push a button, get a read out.

 

[Meerkat]

but you don't need to do that. You do exactly the same thing as with W3W - open an app, push a button, get a read out.

Fair point, but I would rather be reading three words and relying on someone hearing them correctly than reading numbers and hoping they are heard right.
On the OS Maps app the given grid ref is so small, and with no background, such that I can’t read it at all, even in the best conditions!

 

[najaB]

Fair point, but I would rather be reading three words and relying on someone hearing them correctly than reading numbers and hoping they are heard right.

For me, I'd open my GPS Status app, click the share icon and send a text.

 

[si404]

On the OS Maps app the given grid ref is so small, and with no background, such that I can’t read it at all, even in the best conditions!

other apps exist that provide gridrefs...

 

[GlitterUnicorn]

other apps exist that provide gridrefs...

Use OS Locate! Works very well.

 

[Meerkat]

Use OS Locate! Works very well.

Cheers, just downloaded that. Shame it isnt part of OS Maps!
The thing I liked about W3W was that my elderly Dad could give me a W3W ref and the app would then push his and my locations into google maps to show me how to find him.
If OS maps could do that I would be like a pig in you know what!

 

[mmh]

Fair point, but I would rather be reading three words and relying on someone hearing them correctly than reading numbers and hoping they are heard right.
On the OS Maps app the given grid ref is so small, and with no background, such that I can’t read it at all, even in the best conditions!

Words are fine providing the language has no homonyms, a single pronunciation, the speaker fluent, a neutral accent...

The NATO alphabet exists because words are unreliable.

Cheers, just downloaded that. Shame it isnt part of OS Maps!
The thing I liked about W3W was that my elderly Dad could give me a W3W ref and the app would then push his and my locations into google maps to show me how to find him.
If OS maps could do that I would be like a pig in you know what!

What problem are you solving here?

 

[Meerkat]

Words are fine providing the language has no homonyms, a single pronunciation, the speaker fluent, a neutral accent...

This feels like wanting to find problems. It’s just three words to clearly enunciate and likely to be obvious if its wrong.

What problem are you solving here?

The problem I said - for example my dad falls off his bike on the commons/heath and I want to find him.
Or meeting a friend on the beach. Maybe google lets you do that internally by sharing location?

 

[OneOffDave]

For me, I'd open my GPS Status app, click the share icon and send a text.

It's a bit tricky with no mobile coverage. That's a key design feature with W3W that the app doesn't need network connectivity. You get the words and use the landline or send someone to the nearest place with reception

Words are fine providing the language has no homonyms, a single pronunciation, the speaker fluent, a neutral accent...

The NATO alphabet exists because words are unreliable.

Numbers are also unreliable with is why there are pro-words for all the numbers for radio comms

The thing about W3W is not that it's a way of encoding geocoordinates, it's that it's putting it into a form that Joe and Jane average human find easier to handle, remember and pass on. I'd be really interested to do a test with say 1000 people that you get significantly stressed to mimic incident conditions then they have to pass locations using different formats to get some good statistical information but suspect it'd never get ethical approval.

It's all different location identification methods for different uses. After all why do the railways use miles and chains relative to a range of datums rather than lat and long? Lat and long significantly pre-date the railway

 

[najaB]

It's a bit tricky with no mobile coverage. That's a key design feature with W3W that the app doesn't need network connectivity. You get the words and use the landline or send someone to the nearest place with reception

Compose the text then move the phone to where there's a signal.

After all why do the railways use miles and chains relative to a range of datums rather than lat and long? Lat and long significantly pre-date the railway

Because miles and chains provides additional information - for example which line is involved in a multi-line railway.

 

[GlitterUnicorn]

This feels like wanting to find problems. It’s just three words to clearly enunciate and likely to be obvious if its wrong.

The problem I said - for example my dad falls off his bike on the commons/heath and I want to find him.
Or meeting a friend on the beach. Maybe google lets you do that internally by sharing location?

Maybe for your dad it's perfect? Different platforms have different purposes after all. I don't have an issue with the concept, my objection is to the aggressive marketing of it as a solution for the emergency services.

I have some experience in operating airband radios and knowing how (un)reliable they are I'd be far more confident of consistently being able to communicate a six number sequence to someone than three random words. Aviation uses standard phraseology because it's recognised that when under stress and communicating via radio it's incredibly common to mishear words, and thus misunderstand instructions. The idea being that with standard phrasings, even if you don't hear every word exactly you can understand the message via it's sound.

Looking at some nearby addresses on w3w they sound like a nightmare. "Was that word Sack, Slack, Slick or Sick? Celibate or Celebrate? How do you spell Celibate? Why is this person talking about Upcoming Marzipan Labradors?"

...

You get the idea.

With a perfect signal and calm people talking without strong accents you might get by alright, but if you've ever heard recordings of 999 calls you'd know how rare that combination is. Over a radio or weak phone line I feel like I'd have to spell out each word phonetically and have it read back to be sure that I'd got it correct.

Whereas, "November-Sierra-six-three-six, Nine-three-five" is clear, understandable and unambiguous.

 

[najaB]

I don't have an issue with the concept, my objection is to the aggressive marketing of it as a solution for the emergency services.

Same here.

 

[OneOffDave]

Maybe for your dad it's perfect? Different platforms have different purposes after all. I don't have an issue with the concept, my objection is to the aggressive marketing of it as a solution for the emergency services.

I have some experience in operating airband radios and knowing how (un)reliable they are I'd be far more confident of consistently being able to communicate a six number sequence to someone than three random words. Aviation uses standard phraseology because it's recognised that when under stress and communicating via radio it's incredibly common to mishear words, and thus misunderstand instructions. The idea being that with standard phrasings, even if you don't hear every word exactly you can understand the message via it's sound.

Looking at some nearby addresses on w3w they sound like a nightmare. "Was that word Sack, Slack, Slick or Sick? Celibate or Celebrate? How do you spell Celibate? Why is this person talking about Upcoming Marzipan Labradors?"

...

You get the idea.

With a perfect signal and calm people talking without strong accents you might get by alright, but if you've ever heard recordings of 999 calls you'd know how rare that combination is. Over a radio or weak phone line I feel like I'd have to spell out each word phonetically and have it read back to be sure that I'd got it correct.

Whereas, "November-Sierra-six-three-six, Nine-three-five" is clear, understandable and unambiguous.

But for the emergency services, they are finding it a solution. From the time I've spent in control rooms, I know they'd give it the elbow sharpish if it didn't help

Because miles and chains provides additional information - for example which line is involved in a multi-line railway.

That's exactly the point. Different needs use different systems. Like the marker posts on motorways that tell the distance and which carriageway (including slip roads). theoretically you could use the ID of lamposts and road signs on some A roads too

 

[GlitterUnicorn]

But for the emergency services, they are finding it a solution. From the time I've spent in control rooms, I know they'd give it the elbow sharpish if it didn't help

My perception of it was that through the relentless advertising they'd had to adapt, because so many people were expecting them to be able to use it.

 

[OneOffDave]

My perception of it was that through the relentless advertising they'd had to adapt, because so many people were expecting them to be able to use it.

From recent conversations with people who work in a large ambulance control room, they like it as it's more useful for them when people say Hyde Park for example. They can narrow it down as people often know they are in the park but not which side relative to the compass or local roads. I've used it to identify which bit of a complicated bridge I was on as it was a lot easier than saying "quarter of the way over from the south bank on the downstream pedestrian section of the Golden Jubilee Bridge"

 

[najaB]

My perception of it was that through the relentless advertising they'd had to adapt, because so many people were expecting them to be able to use it.

From recent conversations with people who work in a large ambulance control room, they like it as it's more useful for them when people say Hyde Park for example.

It'll be a little of both.

 

[mmh]

I was on as it was a lot easier than saying "quarter of the way over from the south bank on the downstream pedestrian section of the Golden Jubilee Bridge"

What was the situation? I don't think I'd describe that as anything but "the western Hungerford footbridge, the one closest to the houses of Parliament." I wouldn't use downstream / upstream - which way is it? How many people know? I may well have it wrong there. It's not long enough a bridge that your distance along it matters, I wouldn't have thought?

It's a great example of how W3W as a sole method is flawed though. The three words on parts of the bridge will be exactly the same as the on the roads underneath.

 

[OneOffDave]

What was the situation? I don't think I'd describe that as anything but "the western Hungerford footbridge, the one closest to the houses of Parliament." I wouldn't use downstream / upstream - which way is it? How many people know? I may well have it wrong there. It's not long enough a bridge that your distance along it matters, I wouldn't have thought?

It's a great example of how W3W as a sole method is flawed though. The three words on parts of the bridge will be exactly the same as the on the roads underneath.

It was an group of men who'd set up a Three Card Monte game to fleece the tourists. Needed the police to get to both ends of the right one to avoid them escaping. At that point the river is in the turn from north-south to east-west which is why I'd use upstream or downstream given how bendy the Thames is. Yes, without a bit of extra information, none of the main systems for describing a location would differentiate between the bridge and a road it crosses over.

 

[Mojo]

People in this thread have previously advised the use of OS grid reference instead of what3words.

Does anyone know of an easy way to work backwards with this app? I have an OS grid ref but want to input it into Google Maps.

I found this website https://gridreferencefinder.com/ but the direct link to Google Maps doesn’t seem to work, so you have to copy and paste the lat/long.