What3words not suitable for safety critical applications

Great article on the front page about W3W now:

Did it answer the question it posed?

No ...and I wrote it!

* although strictly speaking I didn't exactly set out to answer that question... editors eh? 😉

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-57156797

More problems

Had a good chat about W3W on a MRT exercise on sunday, concensus is that it's not for us. Something that was set up and put out freely, and is then gonna be chargeable once everyones using it, the amazon prime of mapping.

I guess the issue is that the mountains and fells are in the north of the country. If they were in the south there would be far less communication and mispronunciation issues.

It sounds like communication and training issues on a broader spectrum of different teams and organisations before you even mention w3w. Introducing something new that seems to be voluntarily used is going to cause some confusion.

According to the article 85% of calls are successful, but that 15% could still be catastrophic.

An issue with W3W is that words are inherently easier to mishear on a phone call than numbers. If you consider that someone on a 999 call is probably not at their calmest and most rational and may well be passing you W3W provided to them by someone else nearby who's got the app open while they make the call it's very easy to end up with wrong words and particularly easy to lose plurals. Even if you phonetically confirm the W3W back to them they're quite likely to agree with you even if it's incorrect so you need to confirm location from other descriptions they give you.

so you need to confirm location from other descriptions they give you.

Without wishing to re-open this debate, if you read back through the thread there's a MR team call handler who describes the process they use, in short they try not to rely on just one method of location, and triangulate using several unrelated systems.

I know - I'm a police call handler.

An issue with W3W is that words are inherently easier to mishear on a phone call than numbers.

1. I'm not convinced about that; 2. Reading out numbers on a phone call is more likely to jumble digits, than mix the order of the words.

If you consider that someone on a 999 call is probably not at their calmest and most rational and may well be passing you W3W provided to them by someone else nearby who’s got the app open while they make the call it’s very easy to end up with wrong words and particularly easy to lose plurals.

As soon as you add multiple stressed people in a chain of communication there is a risk of transposition error, the screen reader, the caller, the call handler, the person who passes to MRT, the MRT leader to the team etc. Any sensible system would have a check sum / check digit / check word so that it was essentially impossible to think you have a good ref when its not. The same issue applies to all the other methods of location info.

so you need to confirm location from other descriptions they give you.

Exactly - its obvious from the article that many of the mistakes are so far out nobody could think they are real.

According to the article 85% of calls are successful, but that 15% could still be catastrophic.

The question is what were the stats in a pre-W3W world?

A huge amount of MRT situations are now found using their own mobile phone location, and quite often talked off the hill in the case of folks being unsure of where they are and fit to walk.

Without wishing to re-open this debate, if you read back through the thread there’s a MR team call handler who describes the process they use, in short they try not to rely on just one method of location, and triangulate using several unrelated systems.

The one occasion I've had to call MR out (for a friend, MTBing accident), I gave an 8-figure grid ref off my GPS - this was in the early days of consumer GPS units and it was mainly designed for walking so it actually gave out proper grid references rather than simply using GPS as a basis for speed and performance metrics.

MR asked where I was in addition to that (even though they knew the ref I was giving them was off a GPS unit, you can't do 8-fig off a 1:50k OS Map!) and, because I knew the route very well, I was able to tell them the exact location. Castle Crag, approx one mile south of Grange at the southern end of Derwent Water. To them, that was simply confirmation that I'd read the grid ref correctly.

Also, hats off to MR, they were amazing.

If you read back through the thread there’s a MR team call handler who describes the process they use, in short they try not to rely on just one method of location, and triangulate using several unrelated systems.

I had a good conversation about this a few weeks ago with a MR team member for the Brecon Beacons and he said the same thing. When out in the hills I always have my phone with me that can generate a location using W3W, co-ordinates and be used for their app/text pinging system plus I always carry my Garmin bike GPS (even when walking) that can generate co-ordinates and a OS grid reference as it has OS 1:50k maps on it. For unfamiliar areas I'll take a physical map too. He agreed that I had most bases covered, knowing my route and local landmarks would be the extra help they would need. I've only ever had to call for help once when I found a walker with a broken leg on Table Mountain but that was an easy location to describe (right by the stone mound at the summit, they had fallen off it after a strong gust of wind) so have never had to rely on tech to locate me i an emergency thankfully!

1. I’m not convinced about that; 2. Reading out numbers on a phone call is more likely to jumble digits, than mix the order of the words.

That's not what I was saying. Reading numbers or words in the wrong order is a different issue. If someone is reading number digits to you there are only 10 digits and they sound quite different even in strong accents / dialects. There's thousands of words in English, lots of which sound similar, can be changed to sound like other words depending on accent / dialect and with the W3W system there's no context of a sentence to help you identify a misheard word.

At Gisburn yesterday and noticed that the new trail marker posts now have both OS grid and what3words references.

Interestingly, it was easy to memorise the three words for the duration of each section as you passed them. Not sure how much practical use that would be, but was a fun observation 🙂

The focus of these conversations seems to be around mis-pronunciation, plurals etc. Perhaps the biggest issue with W3W is that if you have not closed the app since the last time you used it, when you open it in a panic the three word location will still be where you were the last time you used the app, not where you are right now. To prevent this you need to either close down the app each time or hit the little arrow in the circle to move to current location.

Sounds obvious but easily missed if you mate has just fallen off a cliff and is about to die to death!

I tried to use this the other day to find a location in a semi thick block of woodland. Downloaded it on the spot, so not experienced with it, had the location sent to us, and even with 2 of us on different phones we couldnt zero in on the exact spot. Got within a a dozen squares or so but beyond that couldn't get bang on, GPS lag/accuracy caused issues. If we were looking for a body we wouldn't have found it. Seemed like a reasonable test from a user perspective which didnt go that well.

Just popped up on my FB feed from the local MRT

"This afternoon the team were called out by Welsh Ambulance Services NHS Trust and Gwent Police to an incident in the Black Mountains. A woman had injured her hip while out walking and enjoying this lovely weather.
Contacting the emergency services, they gave their what3words location, however unfortunately this did place them about 10 miles away in a different part of Monmouthshire.
After further investigation and information from a local resident, we were able to determine that she was in the Grwyne Fawr valley.
17 team members responded and working with the paramedics able to extract the lady to a waiting ambulance.
We wish her a fall and speedy recovery."

Make of that what you will 🙂

So, what we need is a reduced vocabulary and more words?

Might I suggest a vocabulary of 36 words and we use 8 to determine a location? Mostly, we'd only need 10 words and use 6 of them.

Contacting the emergency services, they gave their what3words location, however unfortunately this did place them about 10 miles away in a different part of Monmouthshire.
After further investigation and information from a local resident, we were able to determine that she was in the Grwyne Fawr valley.

It'd be interesting to know the location given and the nature of the error - mispronunciation, misreading the words, call handler hearing a different word...

I see people keep talking about sending or using a postcode; do people not realise that a postcode can cover a significant area, especially in rural regions. I can recall any number of occasions when going to pick up a car from a client in Devon, Dorset, Cornwall, etc, where we were given a house name and a postcode, and then spent absolutely ages driving along a road following the satnav, and getting literally nowhere, then tried phoning the client for directions, which raised another issue with cellphone coverage in rural areas.
After nearly an hour driving around we got a clue and a phone connection, and the place we needed was in exactly the opposite direction the satnav took us, nearly a mile from where we first ended up. W3W allows the user to send the location directly to TomTom, our preferred, (and mine as well), mobile navigation system, giving a W3W reference would have saved an hour of frustration trying to find the clients house, which was also set well off the narrow country lane along a hedged drive.
Oh, and thanks to franksinatra for a well written response from a real-world users perspective.

Not sure if I posted on here before I cant remember but im in the fire service and we dont use what3words in outr brigade. but last year I was spotted by a pair of paramedics in their car not on duty and id collapsed at the roadside after I got ill, when they were looking after me they tried to describe the location and the call handler couldn't place it and so they used what 3 words and they turned up at the exact location required, sometimes I wish we used it when trying to locate fires in the woods lol

a vocabulary of 36 words and we use 8 to determine a location? Mostly, we’d only need 10 words and use 6 of them.

That system works for me, but only in GB. (Except only 35 words are used).

Phew!

W3W allows the user to send the location directly to TomTom, our preferred, (and mine as well),

Nice. 2 extra programs to do what Google maps does natively.

Program before you leave and it will guide you to the door.

SMRT post on w3w was enlightening. Basically give us what ever you want. We appreciate that the general public can't give an accurate grid ref but we would rather you used OS locate - as we will change it to a grid ref as that's what is on our maps.

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=4013130385391090&id=337733089597523

SARLOC ... 999 ?

or Maidenhead Locator.

https://github.com/google/open-location-code

and

https://maps.google.com/pluscodes/

https://www.walklakes.co.uk/opus64534.html

The map you have taken with you they say....

Unlikely . So many folk even on here say maps totally unnecessary

Used it after an issue on Dartmoor and was good not only to give location of patient to the 999 handler, but also the nearest tarmac road point to him.

I saw news related to this on the Register this morning and thought it may be of almost no use to anyone here (the alternative service's tags aren't the sort of things you would want to try saying to your helpful dispatcher). It still appealed to the 9 year old in me though so I though it might do the same for some of you lot.

https://www.fourkingmaps.co.uk/

https://www.theregister.com/2021/08/14/sweary_four_word_map/

The map you have taken with you they say….

Unlikely . So many folk even on here say maps totally unnecessary

well it won't be much good if you are looking for a W3W reference on it...

I'm going to insist on Four King Square locations for all future mountain rescue incidents. It will lighten up otherwise grim situations. Awesome

Beaten to the Registers report on a rude four word option for w3w.

I hope this person is using the FourKing map to navigate

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-58229967

well it won’t be much good if you are looking for a W3W reference on it…

To be fair 2 months later. Probably won't even be a body to collect.

fourkingmaps is already the highlight of my week!

My friends and I have started using FourKing Maps for highlighting areas of football violence.

Have you got that wee three words?

4:20
https://singletrackworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/gee-atherton-releases-new-video-about-his-crash/

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=pfbid02LkWYyoqxA8eNS6tK6su4vBcaQCRZFhjvnTv8cNVyVTW6AynX3zAWuciVfJQ4Cn5ul&id=100064748134264

An 83 year old woman collapsed in Crow Park. The informant gave the 999 call handler a What3Words location which was close to Hawes End. The team sent a Landrover first truck to the location only to find nobody. Further enquiries revealed the true location within walking distance of the base. Fortunately more team members had arrived at base and were able to respond quickly to this potentially serious medical incident. The casualty was assessed and stretchered back to base for further assessment and to await the arrival of an ambulance.
This is the second callout in 3 days (and there have been others) when the W3W location has been close enough to be believable but wrong enough to be useless. W3W should not be relied upon on its own. Always give a verbal description of where the casualty is and better still a grid reference from a map or use the app OS-Locate ( https://shop.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/apps/os-locate/ ).

I've read this earlier today, call handlers is at fault, the stressed anxious caller less so. It's not a problem with what 3 words per sae it's just it needs to be checked and the call handlers should be trained to do this.

Better solution

https://www.fourkingmaps.co.uk/what/

Nsfw

"This is the second callout in 3 days (and there have been others) when the W3W location has been close enough to be believable but wrong enough to be useless. "

See this is the exact thing that W3W is supposed to never do. I've defended them in the past on this basis- it's the biggest issue with unskilled mapreading and with transposed or misread digits in GPS or grid coordinates, it's very easy to be a little bit wrong and that's a huge problem for mountain rescue, whereas W3W is SUPPOSED to be either pretty much right, or very wrong, which prevents the "close enough to be believable" error.

But it just doesn't seem to work?

It’s not a problem with what 3 words per sae

It is a flaw with their system. Should be possible to avoid this happening with the right word list. Maybe also add something like a checksum or a fourth check word. Shame it isn't open source.

It is a flaw with their system

It is, but it's known to have flaws so it should always be checked by the professional call handlers who should not be relying on the flustered members of public making the call.

And yet it still comes up.on Police and mountain rescue posts as having helped them locate people.

It's a tool, one tool it should not be relied upon on its own, do call handlers take grid references from flustered members of the public without double checking?

I don't understand why (other than Government focus on the wrong things) why emergency services need to ask anyone using a mobile to describe their location, all they need to do is ensure that Location is enabled and the information will automatically be sent using Advanced Mobile Location protocol. Why risk miscommunication when the information is embedded in the phone signal?

All UK networks have enabled AML, and nearly all phones support it, but apparently not all emergency control rooms are able to interpret it. That could probably be fixed for the cost a few mislocated call-outs.

It’s a tool, one tool it should not be relied upon on its own

Isn't one of the issues with W3W and its proprietary software and data that the owners aren't happy with you using their data sets in conjunction with other systems? Obviously this can be worked round with multiple apps at your end and the call centre end but it's not a great solution.

Better solution

https://www.fourkingmaps.co.uk/what/

Nsfw

Tremendous.

Isn’t one of the issues with W3W and its proprietary software and data that the owners aren’t happy with you using their data sets in conjunction with other systems? Obviously this can be worked round with multiple apps at your end and the call centre end but it’s not a great solution.

It doesn't have to be an app or a system or anything just call handlers asking a few simple questions to double check, don't see how this is hard.

roger_mellie
Full Member

Better solution

> https://www.fourkingmaps.co.uk/what/ < Nsfw Tremendous.

And what better seal of approval could it get?

If someone in distress is insistent on using W3W because they can't find a grid ref, surely the call handlers should ask for two W3W strings because the chance of both locations being misread and both being in the same place must be practically impossible.