How do emergency services find a location?

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Good-Gur-7742@reddit

It’s always a good idea to have your what3words location ready when calling emergency services.

As someone who organises international equestrian events and has sadly had to use well planned emergency protocols, the whole process is infinitely smoother when you use it and it becomes habit.

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RockPaperShredder@reddit

What 3 words is possibly better than nothing but it has flaws that mean emergency services could end up in the wrong location.

https://x.com/alexbloor/status/1383457642438283272

https://cybergibbons.com/security-2/why-what3words-is-not-suitable-for-safety-critical-applications/

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rndltr@reddit

It has huge flaws. A simple plural or homophone and you’re 100 miles away.

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bacon_cake@reddit

The emergency services use it themselves, they even send you a text with a link to W3W.

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Good-Gur-7742@reddit

I’m sure it has flaws, but it has proven to work incredibly well for us every time we have needed it, and the emergency services actively ask for the code for our locations.

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You know what would be better? Using the grid reference system, which is not owned by a private company, and has much less opportunity for confusion. Handily, you can download an app to tell you your grid reference. Unfortunately, emergency services, like everyone else, have been seduced by private equity. I have a friend who was injured while hiking, and the police call handler wouldn't take a grid reference, insisting that they download w3w - only for, as they expected, mountain rescue to get in touch asking for the grid reference that the call handler refused to take...

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Jonny_rhodes@reddit

But the chance of a number being mistyped is significantly higher than a word being misheard, there’s only 3 words but 10 digits. Yes there may be flaws that need fixing, but a mistyped grid reference could lead the services 100km away. This error would be 9 miles apart for this specific example, applied to very few locations rather than any digit of any grid reference and it is quicker to get the information across, the operator could ask clarifying questions with the time saved to make sure.

Also what3words could update references if flaws are pointed out, even if someone read back a grid reference to a caller if it sounds close enough they might not notice a wrong or transposed digit. So the verification is a longer process which is just as likely to fail if not more so

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kierran69@reddit

Not when what3words uses plurals, homophones etc and the difference between american and british English.

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OkSun8521@reddit

there’s only 3 words but 10 digits

This is completely wrong.

There aren't 3 words. There are thousands of words, each containing many letters, many of which sound very similar to each other.

This is why we use numbers for things like this, not words.

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Jonny_rhodes@reddit

Yes a word is made of letter but if implemented properly you wouldn’t need to spell the word because there would only be one word that sounds like it. Whereas a number like 86473638 cannot be conveyed without multiple words, the least amount being if you read individual numbers which is still many more words than a singular word …..

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OkSun8521@reddit

Do you think you could distinguish between rocks.trees.logs, rots.threes.lugs, trots.these.slugs over a noisy phone line?

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Jonny_rhodes@reddit

Hence the words implemented properly What’s the location ? There.their.they’re Would they do that …. No.

And how could you tell the difference quickly ? Are you in California, Illinois or Iceland … First word contain a kilo ? No How many tango ? How would you check if somebody had transposed digits or misheard ? You can’t really because even a description of the area could be a kilometre away and still sound relatively correct. Then you’d have to go through 10 digits again. The fact the 3 examples you chose are so far apart tells me even if misheard it would be easily verified and then accurate.

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OkSun8521@reddit

As people keep telling you, there are loads of examples of similar sounding words which point to locations that are plausibly close.

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Jonny_rhodes@reddit

And as I keep saying also … If they fixed it Implemented properly You want to keep an old system with flaws rather than change to a new system with fewer flaws …

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OkSun8521@reddit

They can't fix it. That's one of the many problems with it.

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Willeth@reddit

You should read the articles that were linked in the messages you're replying to, which address both of these points in full.

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Jonny_rhodes@reddit

I’ve replied to an individual comment not the entire thread

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Willeth@reddit

Okay, great! I still think you should read those links though, they're very informative!

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RockPaperShredder@reddit

Also what3words could update references if flaws are pointed out

They have been, they haven't fixed them. If they do maybe they'd like to start with these (first half dozen taken from the above article);

wants	once
recede	reseed
census	senses
choral	coral
incite	insight
liable	libel

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grand_total@reddit

An app delivering a grid reference and the emergency services accepting that reference could use a check digit to detect transposed digits.

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Good-Gur-7742@reddit

That’s so interesting, I shall look into it. Thank you.

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OkSun8521@reddit

Please don't do What3words' advertising for them.

At best, it's useless. At worst, it's actively dangerous.

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Good-Gur-7742@reddit

It doesn’t cost us any money to use it, and thus far we have been very pleased with how it works.

I’m sorry that our use of an app offends you so deeply. I hope everything is ok with you.

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OkSun8521@reddit

It doesn't cost any money for you to use it today.

It's a private company and a proprietary system. There is nothing to stop them from disabling your app on event day and charging you to use it.

They already charge emergency services to use it.

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Good-Gur-7742@reddit

I think I shall manage. Thank you for your concern.

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OkSun8521@reddit

remindme! 10 years

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yasssqueen20@reddit

Where I work our company phones all come with w3w installed by default which is handy to be fair.

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Good-Gur-7742@reddit

Its so useful. I sent my entire team out one day armed with the app and a section of the property each, and now every single location has a what3words reference on a sign on the gate or door. We’ve got that with the full address, postcode and then the postcode written in phonetic alphabet, along with the designated air ambulance landing reference on what3words.

Sadly we’ve had to use it a few times, but my god it helps speed things up.

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OkSun8521@reddit

How is writing the location on the door helpful?

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Good-Gur-7742@reddit

Because we have over three thousand students to care for, and on an event day we can have up to ten thousand spectators. They aren’t going to be able to give directions to a cross country jump in the middle of a field very easily.

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yasssqueen20@reddit

Where I work our company phones all come with w3w installed by default which is handy to be fair.

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Cheeo0@reddit

https://emergency-numbers.com/

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PolarLocalCallingSvc@reddit

Multiple ways.

I work for a rescue service and we would normally expect an OS grid reference.

But we will take lat/long, what3words, whatever really.

We can get a triangulated position from cell towers but that isn't very accurate (if you switch GPS off on your phone you'll see the blue circle on your maps app expands to cover a larger area). This problem is worse in the remote locations we operate in because of you actually only have one or even two mobile mast, that's not really triangulation but a wild guess.

However, newer models of smartphones have technology like AML which will automatically transmit your phone's location (including use of mobile masts, GPS, etc) to emergency call handlers, which makes our job a lot easier. However we have to consider the usual pitfalls of mobile location services, e.g. if you're in a forest, there's a fair chance your phone won't show your correct location because it doesn't have line of sight etc.

Lastly you have people inside buildings. It's not something I've ever dealt with but you could see how say the fire service would need to ask for instructions to your specific room I assume, especially in say an office building.

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audigex@reddit

With two masts it’s still triangulation (technically trilateration, I think?), just with a wider margin for error. Assuming you’re using TDOA/OTDOA not just “which masts are they connected to?”

One mast gets you a position on a large circle around the mast (technically a sphere but obviously really only the circle at ground level)

Two masts gets you an arc of that circle

Three masts gets you either one or two points on the circle

Four masts gets you a single point

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AnonymousCapybara72@reddit (OP)

Yeah I've heard the same about What3Words which is why I've been surprised when they've pretty much required it.

Maybe if they'd spent some of the money they're paying to use what3words proprietary software to run a campaign showing people how to get their lat/long from the maps software they already have, if would've been a better use of funds...

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boomerangchampion@reddit

Just piggybacking your comment to remind everyone to learn the phonetic alphabet for this exact reason. It's not hard and is useful on almost any phone call, especially in an emergency.

At least learn the easily confused ones like Mike and November.

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AnonymousCapybara72@reddit (OP)

I know the phonetic alphabet, I just feel like a wanker using it.

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PolarLocalCallingSvc@reddit

P for (panics) pneumatic.

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Overall_Gap_5766@reddit

K for knight

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Armodeen@reddit

Best one I ever heard when I worked in ambulance control was a called say Q for Cucumber 😂

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PolarLocalCallingSvc@reddit

Haha brilliant!

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PolarLocalCallingSvc@reddit

My location is bank.tea.whip

What's that, how do I spell the last word?

Well that's W for wrong, H for honest, I for isle, P for pseudo.

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Armodeen@reddit

Tango. Use the NATO phonetic alphabet tbh

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icklepeach@reddit

I don’t know if you will know this, but would AML be affected by having a VPN running?

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EmergencyLocate@reddit

It would not

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PolarLocalCallingSvc@reddit

I'm not sure but I don't think so. My understanding is it'll use the best location service available, so GPS/GLONASS/Galileo/BDS/whatever first, then presumably mobile mast triangulation or WiFi, etc.

Your VPN will give you an IP address but these are rubbish for location really. I live in the Highlands but if my VPN is off I get an IP which geolocates to London.

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icklepeach@reddit

Ah yes of course - like my work phone location is wildly off while browsing but maps etc is accurate.

Thank you. I’ve not had any tea yet so my brain is still asleep.

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PolarLocalCallingSvc@reddit

That's it.

My VPN is regularly set to another country, both work and personal, and it means I get horribly targeted ads often in foreign languages, but actually navigating by Google Maps etc is absolutely fine.

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AmInATizzy@reddit

The only time I have had to call an ambulance in recent years, for a location in the middle of a field, I gave them what3words, it was misheard or too similar to something else and they ended up with a location in another part of the country.

I ended up reading out the GPS co-ordinates from Google maps.

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bacon_cake@reddit

I'm surprised they didn't just adopt Google Plus Codes.

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Tundur@reddit

This is an gripe from last year, but I called an ambulance for an ODing jakie and they refused to send one because I couldn't give an exact location or the guys personal details. I said "outside St Stephens on the High Street, opposite the XYZ Cafe" and she said it wasn't enough and that I was wasting their time. What's his name, what's his address, what's he ingested... like how the fuck am I meant to know he's just lying there drooling on himself.

As I was trying to find the actual address, the old boy had managed to open his eyes and tell me to fuck off (I guess scared of Naloxone) so I left him to it.

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wintonian1@reddit

I was taught to give an OS grid reference if out in the sticks.

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aembleton@reddit

Download w3w. Cheshire Police didn't accept the grid reference when I tried, mountain rescue did but you have to go through the police. They might have changed their policy now but then other forces might require w3w

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172116@reddit

My friend had the same thing from a police scotland call handler - refused to take an OS grid ref, insised on W3W which neither of the uninjured parties had installed. Thankfully the casualty had it, but then as soon as the shout got passed to MR, they called back and asked for the grid ref that the police had refused to take!

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OkSun8521@reddit

This is 100% not an official policy anywhere. You should make a complaint about that call handler.

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aembleton@reddit

It was 2 years ago so probably a bit late. Officially, do they have to accept a grid reference?

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Flapparachi@reddit

I was under the impression they had a google maps style system.

I posted specifically about what3words in this sub a while back, (post was deleted by mods) and was surprised by the number of people that hadn’t heard of it or used it. It’s not completely infallible, but can be the difference of life or death when contacting emergency services alongside giving an address. For us rural folks with no street names, house numbers (and sometimes patchy or no phone signal) or injured in the middle of a field, it can be the only thing they have to pinpoint an incident.

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OkSun8521@reddit

it can be the only thing they have to pinpoint an incident.

It's not though. We already have GPS co-ordinates, which don't require any special app, are compatible with every system ever made, and don't rely on a private company that can turn the system off whenever they feel like it.

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Flapparachi@reddit

This came up in my last post too, and yes that’s true. I’m not sure if you’ve ever been in a situation like this, but it’s really easy to miss digits or get them wrong, or the wrong way round, especially if someone is lying mangled on the ground.

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OkSun8521@reddit

It's also really easy to mess up words, especially when so many of them sound the same or very similar.

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Responsible-Match418@reddit

Well they could ask for your latitude and longitude, but I'm pretty sure you won't have that to hand...

So the alternative is what3words.

Or .. it's "I'm on Madison Avenue halfway down, just last the one way sign, next to a blue car and a house with a porch. There is a tree on the top left corner of the crossroads, and if you face east, you see a clock tower"

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172116@reddit

No, the alternative is the grid reference system, which you can also use an app to establish. It has the advantage of not being owned by a private company.

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Responsible-Match418@reddit

True!

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OkSun8521@reddit

A private company that won't exist in 10 years time.

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justdont7133@reddit

A lot of people are generally terrible at describing locations, don't say which town they're in, give the wrong motorway etc, don't know how to spell unusual road names, plus a lot of road names are repeated in every village in the county eg Church Street, Station Road, High Street etc, making them hard to find quickly on the system. As a call handler I have the built in system map which has a search function based on Royal Mail address data I believe, which is very hard to use as the formatting and spelling can be weird, and has to be input exactly right (or memorise a bunch of wild card search tools). I'll have Google Maps open as a back up, but can still be hard to put the location into the incident system once I've found it on google maps. I can use lat/long, eastings/northings or W3W and put them straight into the system, and W3W is the one of those best understood by the general public. If we're really stuck there's a system used by some forces/sevices that lets you text the person, they accept to share data and we get a pinpoint GPS location but so many people get confused by that, or don't have location settings on (and don't know how to turn them on) that it sometimes just creates more work.

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EmergencyLocate@reddit

Hi, would be interested to learn what’s confusing your callers? Can we reach out to you?

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keeperrr@reddit

Idk. But from what ive seen on traffic cops, the call handlers have very detailed maps.

However, communication and understanding can only go so far.

Im a delivery driver and many houses and streets are not on the map, and delivery instruction/direction is just a whatthreewords..

Still, i refuse to download it.

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Lunaspoona@reddit

I'm a delivery driver and confused as to why you wouldn't want to use what 3 words. It makes your life so much easier! It links to Google maps, you stick the words it and press navigate and it goes through Google maps anyway. I don't recall you needing put any of your data in or setting up an account or anything either if thats what you don't like about apps.

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EmergencyLocate@reddit

Have you seen http://autolocate.it?

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Fancy_Toe1451@reddit

Because people can't spell for shit, and leave off plurals and confuse soundalike words. One minute you are looking for a farm in the Scottish Borders, and the next they've sent you a W3W to a place in Alaska and are screaming at you when you ask for clarification on the original location.

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Lunaspoona@reddit

When they get arsey with me I just tell them to give me the info I need or their foods gonna go cold whilst I'm driving around looking for them. Politely of course. They are usually much nicer then.

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Shot_Net3794@reddit

Why do you refuse to download it?

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keeperrr@reddit

I keep my phone barebones i dont have many apps... Just removed an essay lmao - There's many reasons for that, nothing against the app in particular - i would just use google maps to describe where i am if i needed to.

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mellotronworker@reddit

Wow. Aren't you special.

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keeperrr@reddit

Oh okay

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Scarred_fish@reddit

W3W is absolutely awful, indeed dangerous, and should only be used as an absolute last resort. Address gazetteers have improved dramatically over the last few years and now include local road nicknames, landmarks like memorial, etc. Not perfect, but the emergency services really like to avoid W3W if they can.

A good example why is when they responded to an accident at likely.stage.sock, but found nothing. It was actually at likely.stages.sock. Only 1.5km away - but on opposite side of the river Clyde!

There are other real life stories too, reworked.sheet.lions and reworked.sheets.lions are 1.8km apart - but on the other side of a mountain valley, this led to extensive mountain rescue delays.

The claims made by W3W have been proven to be nonsense. It is a fun novelty, but not to be used seriously. deep.pink.start is only 1km away from deep.pinks.start for example.

There is a more accurate UK system but warning, its NSFW - [Four King Maps]

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aembleton@reddit

Not perfect, but the emergency services really like to avoid W3W if they can.

2 years ago Cheshire Police insisted on it instead of a grid reference. I was on a moor, near the pennine way but that wouldn't be enough information. Was surprised they wouldn't accept a grid reference

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EmergencyLocate@reddit

This is something I hope we can change - I used to live there!

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EmergencyLocate@reddit

Most mobile phones will send your location to BT (in the UK) when the phone makes an emergency call. This is called AML (Advanced Mobile Location) or ELS for Google devices.

It does, however, rely on the receiving emergency service having their computer system capable of receiving this data, even though it’s been available for around 10 years.

If 999 operators are stuck they like to ask for a what3words but this, in my opinion, isn’t the best route to go down - It means your (emergency) request for help has become conditional (on downloading an app etc).

EmergencyLocate supports some 999 services in the UK. We don’t need any words at all and process your location digitally meaning if you’re unable to speak due to a medical episode, or it’s unsafe for you to be heard talking, we can retrieve a location silently and also conduct a two-way text (RCS/SMS) conversation to find out more information about your emergency.

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anoamas321@reddit

I don't know but I once reported something directly outside a train station(so pretty easy to find), and got asked if I knew the postcode......

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OkSun8521@reddit

There are many train stations with similar or the same names. They've probably already dispatched the emergency service vehicle, and are trying to confirm with you that they've sent it to the right place.

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Crack398@reddit

Use an app called "what three words" it has mapped a grid of 3meter by 3meter squares in the whole of the uk and set 3 unique identifying word combination for example "root great car" and any emergency service can find the location within a 3meter space

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OkSun8521@reddit

Please don't promote this. At best, it's completely useless. At worst, it's actively dangerous.

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Crack398@reddit

Just done 2 different first aid courses where they sang its praises on both of them

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OkSun8521@reddit

That is depressing.

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Ch1mchima@reddit

It sometimes depends on your phone, your network and signal strength. Some phones will send your exact location to the emergency services when you dial 999 but it isn’t perfect. As they have you in the phone speaking, they would prefer to verbally obtain your address to know where to go to.

They will often use google maps but W3W is more accurate.

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OkSun8521@reddit

What3Words is absolutely not more accurate.

Co-ordinates can pinpoint you to any degree of accuracy you choose, limited only by the constraints of your GPS device and how long you want to spend reading out numbers.

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johnsjuicyjungle@reddit

It’s baffling that emergency services have locked themselves into a proprietary location service like W3W. I can’t see what problem it solves - google maps has open source location code or gps readily available. If you’re directing someone to W3W just direct them to the place in google maps.

Words are surely the worst medium to convey something precise, there’s numerous examples of similar sounding word combinations being in nearby, but different locations.

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Flatcapspaintandglue@reddit

I agree, but isn’t Google maps another proprietary service?

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johnsjuicyjungle@reddit

GMaps is but the ways they provide location (street address/lat lon/plus code) are all open source. W3W mapping is a black box and can only be decoded by the company.

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OkSun8521@reddit

W3W mapping is a black box and can only be decoded by the company.

Someone tried to reverse engineer it and immediately got sued.

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Flatcapspaintandglue@reddit

Gotcha. Yeah I can’t foresee anything going wrong there…

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Pocket_Aces1@reddit

The reason they've locked themselves in is because of W3W marketing. Give it free and advertise like crazy to private personal use. Get as many members of the public using it, and getting used to it, and then now companies or services which require exact location data need to use something like this, because everyone's using it, and now they have to pay for it. And they know they wouldn't get funding to make their own location service software.

I believe w3w has tried to sort that issue out a little, by trying to spread out similar sounding words and homophones into different places of the world. It's still a poor way though. Accents, non-english/poor language speaking, etc can all contribute to getting one or more of the words incorrect.

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TomatoMiserable3043@reddit

It’s baffling that emergency services have locked themselves into a proprietary location service like W3

They haven't. They frequently use EISEC, but W3W is often much more accurate and, crucially, available to the public.

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Jacktheforkie@reddit

What 3 words, signage (motorways have signs every hundred metres with details, 999 can access your mobile phone location and if you use an emergency telephone they’ll know exactly where that is

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Armodeen@reddit

You just answered your own question

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shitford1987@reddit

I was in a nasty car accident last month, crawled out of my destroyed vehicle in the middle of nowhere and called the emergency number my phone had predialled (SOS crash detection function ftw). The person on the phone asked me my location and I just sobbed that I didn’t know, but she found our location really quickly presumably from GPS? So I imagine they must be able to find people somehow?

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JakeBees@reddit

I believe 112 had the capability to be geolocated but 999 doesn’t so if you don’t know your location go 112

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WombleGCS15@reddit

Ex call taker for the ambo - I left 12 years ago, so what I know is probably out of date !!

If calling from a landline your address would be digitally passed by the BT operator to you (however, this would be the bill payers details so may not link up to the actual address)

From a mobile, on the system I used on yr map screen you would get a shaded circle drawn with a number in it - meaning the call is coming from somewhere in this circle and the number was a percentage of how sure their system was of this info.

Normally it would be anywhere between 75-95% sure, and I’ve seen it circle the extract location to covering an area 50sqyare miles !

What 3 words was just coming in when I left and could be seen as a game changer when they didn’t have a clue where they were.

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aussieflu999@reddit

what3words is the best option

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Selpmis@reddit

I believe when you call or interact with emergency services, they ask for your details.

Then they use that information that is linked to your mobile phone number in the future.

If you've never interacted with them before using that mobile phone number, they have no information to go from. But otherwise they will use previously taken information.

Obviously this isn't at all helpful if you're in a different location that isn't your address or another linked address.

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TheGeordieGal@reddit

I’m no pro but I’d suspect maybe if they contacted the people who seem to be the local police they might be able to recognise the description?

Most vague I’ve had to be was an object on an a road. Description was “in the slow lane a few hundred metres past where the lights end in this area and close to the lay-by”. Conveniently near a police station (although they’d have had to drive the long way round to get a junction to join!) so I’m sure they could work out the area from that description.

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artfuldodger128@reddit

Yep, you're not a pro.

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TicksAndBricks@reddit

I can only speak for the time I went to listen in to 999 calls for an NHS Trust, but the location finding was actually done using Google Maps. The call taking software doesn't have a map function. I should say did because this was over a decade ago, but I doubt much has changed.

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HydraSiren@reddit

Might depend on the trust. Forbidden at a lot of them.

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HydraSiren@reddit

It populates with a rough idea of where you are. Sometimes depending on signal it’s very exact, other times it’s super vague and across a wide area.

Using the systems provided range catchment area of where it thinks you are, combined with any details provided regarding landmarks and the incident itself we are able to narrow down the location.

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