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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?
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.
"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.
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 MemberBetter 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.
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.
100%
The question is not in this particular case did it take someone to the wrong place, but without W3W would they have been able to better describe their location. Its not like emergency crews never had to hunt for their callers before W3W arrived. Plenty of ambulance crews etc have been sent to Smith St rather than Smith Rd.
And it's misleading to suggest the W3W is fundamentally any more flawed than other systems. NM123456 and NN123456 very easy to mishear (with untrained users who do not use phonetic alphabet etc). Get an American to say NZ and a brit likely to hear NC etc. Then possibility to jumble numbers - has nobody here ever read 124356 as 123456 or written 787878 as 787877? And the possibility of someone not familiar with grid refs (either caller or call handler) seeing NS123456 7890123 and being asked for six fig GR giving NS123456 rather than NS123789 etc. Handwriten records have potential for further misreads. Same issue when you mix decimal lat long and min/secs. An "ideal" mayday call to the coastguard from a vessel describes its positions both in lat long and a bearing and distance from a defined landmark. Realistically many mayday calls are lucky to include any position info.
The person who suggested it is totally pointless as the smartphone will be able to tell the system automatically were it is have assumed that the person making the 999 call is at the scene. They may have had to walk to get signal, they may have relayed a message (e.g. via a security person on a large site, via a family member etc). Lots of scope for error.
it’s misleading to suggest the W3W is fundamentally any more flawed than other systems. NM123456 and NN123456 very easy to mishear
Yeah but those two points aren't close together so it's pretty simple to determine which would be the correct one. W3W surely shouldn't have two points "similarly" named but close enough to cause confusion, which is what happened in this latest instance.
A few years ago I was in a local to me woods with a dislocated elbow and w3w had me miles away , search and rescue said it was flawed and used a different system and located me straight away .
No idea if they now use w3w but it didn't work for me
it’s misleading to suggest the W3W is fundamentally any more flawed than other systems. NM123456 and NN123456 very easy to mishear
But literally the point of W3W was to stop this very problem and it doesn't.
W3W surely shouldn’t have two points “similarly” named but close enough to cause confusion, which is what happened in this latest instance.
Exactly. W3W aggressively claim that locations that sound similar will never be near, but it's been shown repeatedly that this is not the case, and it's not just isolated cases: the algorithm for generating the location codes is flawed and actually consistently generates confusable pairs within close proximity.
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.
Both are true. Yes, call handlers should double check, but they shouldn't be starting from a flawed, proprietary system.
NM123456 and NN123456 very easy to mishear (with untrained users who do not use phonetic alphabet etc).
That's generally unlikely to be a problem, though. I rarely use the prefixes, normally locality + 6 figs is enough.
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.
I'm not sure how you'd check, short of "please spell out the words" - which would seem to defeat the point of using it over anything else.
Most people don't know where they are - ask them to describe and "er, there's grass? I passed a robin a little while ago...".
"If you are still offended maybe swearword based navigation isn't for you."
🤣
For the vast majority of people (not STW types obvs) they won’t have a clue on working out long / lat map locations so W3W is a great compromise tool.
It also works globally which is often overlooked.
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.
In the vast majority of cases, call handlers will be dealing with a stressed / traumatised / injured person, potentially in an unfamiliar (and possibly unsafe) location and they may not be able to accurately describe their location (especially a random road or not of woodland with no real distinguishing features) and W3W adverts have always stated that it'll get you down to a 3m x 3m grid.
You can understand why the poor person making the phone call is expecting it to be easily understood and can't get why the call handler is asking for grid ref and postcode and various other checks...
Edit: not sure if ambulance sat nav systems have been updated recently but I know they certainly used to need a postcode, it wouldn't work off a W3W. Paramedics were often using their own phones as back up.
For the vast majority of people (not STW types obvs) they won’t have a clue on working out long / lat map locations so W3W is a great compromise tool.
I get this. But then it's monumentally frustrating that you can't give an OS ref to the emergency services if that's what you've got (And the breakdown services too, come to that). I tried to give an OS reference to a 999 call handler when we were still in Hampshire. I was with a very ill asthma attack person, but in a bit of the world without mountain rescue, but still in quite a wild location. They we not having any of it. Paramedics tried to drive as close as they could and walk to us and were frankly useless. One of them walked his mum's dog in the area and thought he knew better than the instructions I gave them. 40mins of listening to sirens until they turned up.
For the vast majority of people (not STW types obvs) they won’t have a clue on working out long / lat map locations so W3W is a great compromise tool.
Which is why the article I linked to mentions the use of the OS Locate App.
Does OS Locate work outside the UK?
I’ve been quite quick to defend W3W in the past, in summary I’ve always said it is the responsivity of the call handlers to not treat the location as three words but, instead, as a reference that needs reading back as individual letters. If checked it is fine. However there is a flaw which seems fundamental and I believe is a cause of a lot of the issues we see. The location given in the app is often where the destination curser is set to, this is not the same as current actual location. To get current location you need to hit the arrow in the bottom right corner. I believe lot of the’ near but not close enough’ locations given are a result of this issue. You only need to tap the screen to then see the location change from where you are to where you have tapped.
The advantage of OS locate is that it will only give you your current location, however hard you try to make it tell you otherwise.
Does OS Locate work outside the UK?
Yes. It shows your position in Lat/Long. Our DofE group used it in Sweden. Can't recall if you need to switch from OSGR to Lat/Long in settings or if it's automatic but it does work.
It also works globally which is often overlooked
But if you have the English language version, it will give you your position using the English word set, which will not necessarily be the same as the local version.
Can’t recall if you need to switch from OSGR to Lat/Long in settings or if it’s automatic but it does work.
[s]It shows Lat/Long as standard alongside UK OS grid.[/s]
I *used* too, now it doesn't. I cannot se a menu to change it either....
It's in the Settings
(About...Settings...Co-ordinates)
Yes. It shows your position in Lat/Long.
That's not a good solution though. Reading out a lat/long is a right pita.
I've been feeling for a while that plus codes are the right solution for this.
I’ve always said it is the responsivity of the call handlers to not treat the location as three words but, instead, as a reference that needs reading back as individual letters.
That really seems like it's just not fit for purpose.
Checking the odd 20 characters vs a 6 fig grid ref.
That’s not a good solution though. Reading out a lat/long is a right pita.
You can also hit the Share button to send it by Message (Messenger or SMS), Email, Facebook and Twitter.
Yeah, but if you can do that, then doing anything *except* that is crazy.
That really seems like it’s just not fit for purpose.
Checking the odd 20 characters vs a 6 fig grid ref.
Yeah but spelling a word tells you if you've got the right word or not. checking 6 digits doesn't do that. Overall words are better than strings of numbers for this job, even if longer, it's just being let down by other parts of the process.
In the end I don't get why there isn't just a core app for android and iphone that does nothing but generate a location in a well designed way and includes a straightforward function to share it. Something foolproof and integrated.
straightforward function to share it.
Scottish borders, so not that far from "civilization" at any time but so many areas with no phone reception. I was training my dofe kids to use os locate screen grab the location then head to reception to make the 999 call. We would try it on training days and most of the time I'd get the location of "reception" not incident. Weirdly the most effective pair had sharpie'd the 6fig on each others foreheads. (Parents found it funny fortunately)