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emergency services and what3words


Jim Riley

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12 minutes ago, Richard10002 said:

In terms of navigation, position finding, and survival, you have way more knowledge than most people. But this is about the ordinary Joe finding their position, and being able to translate it into something they can give to the emergency responder, (or house viewer), so they can find them.

So use GPs (it is normally accurate to about 15 feet).

 

Put your location / address into google and it will give you your co-ordinates, you can tell your 'housebuyer' either your co-ordinates or address - or they could just use their 'sat nav' and the post code you gave them.

 

If you are 'lost' then your phone will tell you your co-ordinates (normally even without a phone signal) but without a phone signal how will you tell the rescue services where you are ?

If you have a phone signal then the rescue services can 'home in' to within a few feet of you without any directions. (A friend is a Mountain Rescue co-ordinator and this is what he tells me)

 

I was recently in the unfortunate position of having to travel in the front of an ambulance with the blues & two's going. I actually discussed how they find the location of the 'injured' party and was told.

 

When you call 999, they can track your call down to within a few yards - this is why they keep you talking and explaining the persons injuries etc etc.

This position is relayed to the Ambulance in Lat / Long which is then entered into their sat nav (works on Post code, OS grid refs or Lat Long).

The ambulance has no means of translating 'three words' to a location, so would rely on the 999 operator converting it to lat long and passing onto the ambulance.

 

Why confuse / complicate things further when GPS is global, accurate and available on a device which everyone (?) already has in their pocket ?

Edited by Alan de Enfield
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2 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

So use GPs (it is normally accurate to about 15 feet).

How? The phone knows where it is, but how does the user get the position simply, in a way that they can pass to the emergency responder?

 

2 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

If you are 'lost' then your phone will tell you your co-ordinates

How?.... see above.... (I think we discussed earlier how irrelevant all of this is if there is no phone signal, or data signal)

 

2 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

If you have a phone signal then the rescue services can 'home in' to within a few feet of you without any directions. (A friend is a Mountain Rescue co-ordinator and this is what he tells me)

Assuming this to be the case, why would a paramedic even need to think about any kind of position translation system?

 

If you mean something like SARLOC, then it's an app similar to what3words, (when I similar, I dont mean the same as... :) )

13 minutes ago, ivan&alice said:

Personally I keep all my money in boat form ?

You laugh, but what if you had a few thousand saved for retirement, or a rainy day. Not easy to convert boat into money in a hurry :) 

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2 hours ago, ivan&alice said:

I'm very anti-what3words.

 

Having a private company be in charge of addressing the world, with a proprietary algorithm that they charge (certain users) to use, is language-specific, and requires non-free/libre apps to be downloaded onto devices, especially relating to location based services, is a very, very dangerous situation to be promoting. Also, the addresses don't relate to each other in any way - is selfish.private.company to the east or west of dumb.unneeded.idea? How far apart are they?

 

What's wrong with latitude and longitude? It's easy to understand, are easy to relate to each other, works in all languages, and can be arbitrarily precise. Works without any non-free algorithm using GPS and GLONASS satellites.

 

As to the "more the merrier" location standards, I don't agree with that one bit. What's better, to train emergency service personnel and the public in one existing system or in fifty? I can't entertain the thought that emergency services wouldn't understand a GPS coordinate.

 

We have a good system that has been around for years, we don't need what3words.

Latitude and longitude are certainly not understood by the majority of people, just as many people are unable to understand OS map references. There is also the fact that if you are trying to tell an emergency services operator where you are situated the simpler the "transmission" the better.
Even having to give a 6 figure OS reference can be got wrong, as I have had experience of; they transposed the 3 figure sets in their panic. 

 

1 hour ago, ivan&alice said:

Fair enough, and each to his own. If I'm ever in an emergency situation I'll dictate my GPS coordinates over the phone, I'll admit it is slightly more effort than three words. I hope that the responders were in class the day they did lat / lon training rather than the what3words training.

And all the Controller areas that we deal with will not be able to deal with that information so will have to question you in further detail to ascertain your position, delaying their response. 
I don't think you understand how the Emergency Services work here.

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1 hour ago, Alan de Enfield said:

So use GPs (it is normally accurate to about 15 feet).

 

Put your location / address into google and it will give you your co-ordinates, you can tell your 'housebuyer' either your co-ordinates or address - or they could just use their 'sat nav' and the post code you gave them.

Considering that there are post code areas around here that can cover 30 sq miles, the post code is not going to help.

1 hour ago, Alan de Enfield said:

 

If you are 'lost' then your phone will tell you your co-ordinates (normally even without a phone signal) but without a phone signal how will you tell the rescue services where you are ?

If you have a phone signal then the rescue services can 'home in' to within a few feet of you without any directions. (A friend is a Mountain Rescue co-ordinator and this is what he tells me)

Triangulation of a mobile phone is not automatically done, and can take some time to set up, and even then it is NOT accurate. It depends on the number of masts used, and to get an accurate fix you need 3. Getting that in same rural areas is not possible. The organisation I was involved with had many conversations with the mobile phone companies over this.

1 hour ago, Alan de Enfield said:

 

I was recently in the unfortunate position of having to travel in the front of an ambulance with the blues & two's going. I actually discussed how they find the location of the 'injured' party and was told.

 

When you call 999, they can track your call down to within a few yards - this is why they keep you talking and explaining the persons injuries etc etc.

This position is relayed to the Ambulance in Lat / Long which is then entered into their sat nav (works on Post code, OS grid refs or Lat Long).

The ambulance has no means of translating 'three words' to a location, so would rely on the 999 operator converting it to lat long and passing onto the ambulance.

 

Why confuse / complicate things further when GPS is global, accurate and available on a device which everyone (?) already has in their pocket ?

That certainly does NOT apply to the Ambulance Services we have dealt with, as far as a mobile phone call is concerned. Yes an accurate "fix" can be made from a land line.

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4 minutes ago, Graham Davis said:

And all the Controller areas that we deal with will not be able to deal with that information so will have to question you in further detail to ascertain your position, delaying their response. 
I don't think you understand how the Emergency Services work here.

You're right, I have no idea how the emergency services work. Where is "here"? Are you telling me that if I called 999 and told them I needed medical assistance at 51.953, -0.707 they wouldn't be able to help me?

Considering that's how I tell friends where my boat is I'd be very surprised if that was the case.

Like I said though, I'll admit that the three words is slightly easier than dictating digits. But I don't think the cost is worth it.

11 minutes ago, Graham Davis said:

Latitude and longitude are certainly not understood by the majority of people

Neither are what3words. I'd hazard that fewer people have heard about what3words. Is the solution to create a new system or to educate people about the existing system?

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31 minutes ago, Graham Davis said:

Considering that there are post code areas around here that can cover 30 sq miles, the post code is not going to help.

I agree the 1st 3 digits of the post code will cover a large area - we are in the middle of nowhere and the 1st 3 digits probably cover a radius of about 10 miles.

 

The last three digits is much more refined.

 

We have no neighbours closer than about 1/2 mile (across the fields) yet the delivery couriers seem to find us (virtually) every time - sometimes they get stuck the wrong side of a padlocked level crossing that is 500 yards away but the post code seems to work in our area.

 

The last digit in our post code covers us and out nearest neighbour.

The population of our 'post-code' is 8

We are very rural.

 

Maybe the Powys emergency services are very different - I remember us having a discussion about the "Ambicopter' recently and the operation in Wales was vastly different to that in England.

 

 

When we lived in a very rural Wales (up in the hills between Wrexham & Mold) we had one neighbour (with a shared drive). We were the only two with that particular post code.

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17 minutes ago, ivan&alice said:

You're right, I have no idea how the emergency services work. Where is "here"? Are you telling me that if I called 999 and told them I needed medical assistance at 51.953, -0.707 they wouldn't be able to help me?

Then I suggest that before you make comments you do find out how they work.
Yes, I am saying that if you gave those coordinates they would not know where they were and therefore would have to ask you pertinent questions to find out where you were.

17 minutes ago, ivan&alice said:

Considering that's how I tell friends where my boat is I'd be very surprised if that was the case.

Like I said though, I'll admit that the three words is slightly easier than dictating digits. But I don't think the cost is worth it.

Neither are what3words. I'd hazard that fewer people have heard about what3words. Is the solution to create a new system or to educate people about the existing system?

Fine, you can't see the advantages, but the professionals can and they do think it is worth it. 
From our experience the simpler the system the easier it is to teach people it and the quicker they understand it.

And frankly I will trust the experience of the professionals first, in this case.

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1 hour ago, Graham Davis said:

Then I suggest that before you make comments you do find out how they work.

Ouch, easy...! ?

 

1 hour ago, Graham Davis said:

Yes, I am saying that if you gave those coordinates they would not know where they were and therefore would have to ask you pertinent questions to find out where you were.

I take it that you're a professional then. I didn't know this and apologise for my ignorance. But wow, I'm honestly shocked. The situation is dire if professionals, trained to geolocate people in life or death situations, do not understand how coordinates work.

 

My point stands even stronger then. The experts need to learn basic geography before they can have a hope to understand what3words.

 

1 hour ago, Graham Davis said:

Fine, you can't see the advantages

If you read again, you'll see I said I do see the advantages. As a professional in the software industry, I can tell you that giving software companies this kind of power is an extremely bad idea, and NOT worth it.

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Any emergency personnel care to comment?

I too cant believe they are sent out with just a Sat nav and the local A to Z street altas. I really hope they ARE trained to understamd and use lat and long and OS map coordinates.

And please dont tell me the air ambulance and police helicopter do not know how to use lat and long coordinates!

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12 minutes ago, Thorfast said:

Any emergency personnel care to comment?

I too cant believe they are sent out with just a Sat nav and the local A to Z street altas. I really hope they ARE trained to understamd and use lat and long and OS map coordinates.

And please dont tell me the air ambulance and police helicopter do not know how to use lat and long coordinates!

The Welsh Ambulance crews in this rural area are equipped with a tablet that has the OS maps downloaded onto it. When they get a shout that map is updated with the position of the incident by the Control Room and a suggested route, although local knowledge can override that. They do not use lat. and long. and are not trained in it, but they do use OS map references, which is why we spent many days a few years ago visiting every remote farm and homestead and issuing them with their OS MR's. 
I also know that the Fire Service use a similar system, and I suspect the Police.
From what I have seen in Cardiff they do use a Sat Nav and are equipped with A to Z's as well.
And from my working with the Air Ambulance they also use OS MR's and are equipped with similar tablets. Certainly all the RV points I have been involved with we have given the OS MR's so that all the Services can get there if needed.

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3 hours ago, Alan de Enfield said:

So use GPs (it is normally accurate to about 15 feet).

 

Put your location / address into google and it will give you your co-ordinates, you can tell your 'housebuyer' either your co-ordinates or address - or they could just use their 'sat nav' and the post code you gave them.

 

If you are 'lost' then your phone will tell you your co-ordinates (normally even without a phone signal) but without a phone signal how will you tell the rescue services where you are ?

If you have a phone signal then the rescue services can 'home in' to within a few feet of you without any directions. (A friend is a Mountain Rescue co-ordinator and this is what he tells me)

 

I was recently in the unfortunate position of having to travel in the front of an ambulance with the blues & two's going. I actually discussed how they find the location of the 'injured' party and was told.

 

When you call 999, they can track your call down to within a few yards - this is why they keep you talking and explaining the persons injuries etc etc.

This position is relayed to the Ambulance in Lat / Long which is then entered into their sat nav (works on Post code, OS grid refs or Lat Long).

The ambulance has no means of translating 'three words' to a location, so would rely on the 999 operator converting it to lat long and passing onto the ambulance.

 

Why confuse / complicate things further when GPS is global, accurate and available on a device which everyone (?) already has in their pocket ?

So was the OP lying, or being fed incorrect information, or what?

 

What is the point of the emergency services educating "us" in the existence and use  of "what3 words", if they have our precise location as soon as they pick the phone up.

 

I've seen real life TV programmes where a helicopter is flying around looking for their paramedic colleagues when, if what you say is fact for all emergency services, the helicopter crew know "exactly" where their colleagues are. I'm not denying what you have been told, but it's hard to see it being the case in every situation, possibly not even most, or many.

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1 minute ago, Richard10002 said:

What is the point of the emergency services educating "us" in the existence and use  of "what3 words", if they have our precise location as soon as they pick the phone up.

Apparently it takes 4 minutes to locate a mobile- which many people will not remain on the phone for when their 'loved one' is lying bleeding to death.

 

In swmbo's case the land ambulance approached down our lane & stopped on the opposite side of the hedge to where she was lying and got out to look for us. They were within 10 feet.

 

The air ambulance circled almost over us and then decided to go and land 2miles away. When I eventually got thru to the Helicopter control centre they would not accept that the helicopter was in the wrong place (despite admitting that there was no patient where they were). I explained I had seen them landing.

I told them to take off and head 2 miles East where I would release an orange smoke flare. I was told "they cannot just take off - they have to file a new flight plan with the RAF", eventually they did take off and landed in the garden 30 yards away from swmbo.

4 minutes ago, Richard10002 said:

If the 999 call handler knows your precise location when you call, landline or mobile phone, the whole premise of this article is flawed.

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-47705912

 

So who is right?

 

A 'press release' issued by Chris Sheldrick, co-founder of what3words, ????

 

It does not say that tracking by phone is not, or cannot, be used.

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3 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

Apparently it takes 4 minutes to locate a mobile- which many people will not remain on the phone for when their 'loved one' is lying bleeding to death.

 

In swmbo's case the land ambulance approached down our lane & stopped on the opposite side of the hedge to where she was lying and got out to look for us. They were within 10 feet.

 

The air ambulance circled almost over us and then decided to go and land 2miles away. When I eventually got thru to the Helicopter control centre they would not accept that the helicopter was in the wrong place (despite admitting that there was no patient where they were). I explained I had seen them landing.

I told them to take off and head 2 miles East where I would release an orange smoke flare. I was told "they cannot just take off - they have to file a new flight plan with the RAF", eventually they did take off and landed in the garden 30 yards away from swmbo.

So the ambulance knew where you were, but the helicopter had no idea. Not sure what you’re point is?

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19 minutes ago, Graham Davis said:

The Welsh Ambulance crews in this rural area are equipped with a tablet that has the OS maps downloaded onto it. When they get a shout that map is updated with the position of the incident by the Control Room and a suggested route, although local knowledge can override that. They do not use lat. and long. and are not trained in it, but they do use OS map references, which is why we spent many days a few years ago visiting every remote farm and homestead and issuing them with their OS MR's. 
I also know that the Fire Service use a similar system, and I suspect the Police.
From what I have seen in Cardiff they do use a Sat Nav and are equipped with A to Z's as well.
And from my working with the Air Ambulance they also use OS MR's and are equipped with similar tablets. Certainly all the RV points I have been involved with we have given the OS MR's so that all the Services can get there if needed.

Now that info is very reassuring..................and makes just3words rather supportinve, rather than being the 'must use'   system.

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What I really dont like about just3words is that it is completely random. One 3m location square could be 'banana,please,shed' and the very next 3m square could be 'gallop,toes,kitchen' There is no progression, no learning sequence to it. 

Smacks of potential money making by the developers to me.

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4 hours ago, ivan&alice said:

...what3words training.

I must have missed that post.

 

Training or "our system is so obviously better you don't need..."

 

(Years ago I worked in an office where we were told "you're technical, you don't need teaching Word ..")

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23 minutes ago, Richard10002 said:

If the 999 call handler knows your precise location when you call, landline or mobile phone, the whole premise of this article is flawed.

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-47705912

 

So who is right?

 

Android mobile phones have a system called ELS which activates when you call 999.

 

A brief extract (you can do more research if you wish)

 

When emergency services get a call, they need to know the caller’s location to send help and save lives.

Today, over 80% of calls to emergency services come from mobile phones, but locating these mobile callers can be a major issue. Current emergency solutions rely on cell tower location (which can have a radius of up to several kilometers) or assisted GPS (which can fail indoors).

 

To help address this issue, we created the Emergency Location Service in Android. This feature, when supported by your network, sends location from your phone to emergency services when you dial an emergency number. This uses the same location technologies available to apps on your phone, including Wi-Fi, GPS, and cell towers, to produce a more reliable emergency location both indoors and outdoors.

 

 

I cannot post it because it is a Pdf (which are no longer allowed to be posted on the forum) but you can do a search :

 

Ofcom document dated 2014

 

……………. the UK mobile industry has concluded trials of a new approach to providing location information which is now beginning to be implemented by operators and mobile handset manufacturers. In this document we welcome this industry initiative and intend to monitor how it develops

 

1.16 In this approach, when the handset detects that an emergency call is being initiated, it uses satellite navigation and other location capabilities (such as Wi-Fi hotspot identification), if available, to ascertain its position.  It then sends an emergency SMS (“eSMS”) with this information, along with an identifier of the call so that a correlation can be made between the call and the associated location information.

 

1.17 The emergency service operator will therefore normally receive the emergency call along with the usual network-provided location information (Cell-ID) and, while the call is in progress, updated location information will be made available to the emergency operator

 

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31 minutes ago, Richard10002 said:

If the 999 call handler knows your precise location when you call, landline or mobile phone, the whole premise of this article is flawed.

Advanced Mobile Location is available to the emergency services, as long as the phone used is recent enough to provide it, https://eena.org/aml/ . https://eena.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/2019_07_17_AML_Report_Card_Update.pdf (68 page PDF) says 60% of calls in the UK do provide a location. This will no doubt improve as people replace their phones. 

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10 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

Android mobile phones have a system called ELS which activates when you call 999.

 

A brief extract (you can do more research if you wish)

 

When emergency services get a call, they need to know the caller’s location to send help and save lives.

Today, over 80% of calls to emergency services come from mobile phones, but locating these mobile callers can be a major issue. Current emergency solutions rely on cell tower location (which can have a radius of up to several kilometers) or assisted GPS (which can fail indoors).

 

To help address this issue, we created the Emergency Location Service in Android. This feature, when supported by your network, sends location from your phone to emergency services when you dial an emergency number. This uses the same location technologies available to apps on your phone, including Wi-Fi, GPS, and cell towers, to produce a more reliable emergency location both indoors and outdoors.

 

 

I cannot post it because it is a Pdf (which are no longer allowed to be posted on the forum) but you can do a search :

 

Ofcom document dated 2014

 

……………. the UK mobile industry has concluded trials of a new approach to providing location information which is now beginning to be implemented by operators and mobile handset manufacturers. In this document we welcome this industry initiative and intend to monitor how it develops

 

1.16 In this approach, when the handset detects that an emergency call is being initiated, it uses satellite navigation and other location capabilities (such as Wi-Fi hotspot identification), if available, to ascertain its position.  It then sends an emergency SMS (“eSMS”) with this information, along with an identifier of the call so that a correlation can be made between the call and the associated location information.

 

1.17 The emergency service operator will therefore normally receive the emergency call along with the usual network-provided location information (Cell-ID) and, while the call is in progress, updated location information will be made available to the emergency operator

 

So why the education referred to in the OP?

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5 minutes ago, andy3196 said:

Advanced Mobile Location is available to the emergency services, as long as the phone used is recent enough to provide it, https://eena.org/aml/ . https://eena.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/2019_07_17_AML_Report_Card_Update.pdf (68 page PDF) says 60% of calls in the UK do provide a location. This will no doubt improve as people replace their phones. 

Not much help to the 40% that don’t, if they are involved in an emergency?

 

For some reason, the OP was aware of an emergency services promotion of what3words, and made us aware of it.

 

Some here have commented on what a good idea it seems to be, yet others have found whatever reasons they can to poo poo it.

 

If the operator receives an accurate position, all is fine, and off they go. No need for what3words :) 

 

but, if the operator doesn’t receive an accurate position, they send a text with a link, ask the caller to click on the link in the text, and tell them the 3 words that appear. 

 

If the emergency services are promoting it, they must like it. If they’re not, whatvwascthe OP about?

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