Re: How To Quickly Share Precise Location Offline In Emergency Without Coordinates
Roseanne Gennett
You can use Plus Codes to identify a specific location to receive deliveries, access emergency and social services, or direct people to a location. Since the codes are simple, you can easily share them with others.
Stay location-aware by knowing your exact coordinates at any time. Accurately locate yourself and other points of interest on detailed maps, and easily share that information with family or friends in case of emergency. Search for specific coordinates on any map and switch between coordinate formats.
How to Quickly Share Precise Location Offline in Emergency without Coordinates
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For example, emergency responders in Miami can get to the precise location easily, for example a heart attack in a golf course. You can say I'm at dog.pepper.box instead of Miami municipal golf course, hole 7, right about the second sand trap on the left Community Weekly Discussion: Mapping uncharted areas for emergency responders
The Los Angeles City Fire Department is officially adopting what3words as a tool to help locate callers faster in an emergency. Being able to locate a caller during an emergency is essential and the faster the location is confirmed, the faster help can be dispatched. what3words enables callers and dispatchers to communicate precise locations with just three words.
1. LAFD has built what3words into its Computer Aided Dispatch (CAD) system. Dispatchers at Metropolitan Fire Communications (MFC) are able to quickly create an incident precisely at the caller's location despite no associated address. The location can then be shared with responding resources on their mobile data computer maps, which means helicopters and ground resources are able to quickly navigate to a caller's exact location.
Interested individuals can download the free app for iOS and Android or use the free online map to find and share their precise location. The app even works offline, making it ideal for use in remote areas that might have a poor internet connection, such as state parks and lakes that are enjoyed by hikers, tourists and lovers of the great outdoors alike where accidents can occur.
A what3words address provides the accuracy of GPS coordinates, in a human-friendly format that is easier to communicate and less prone to error than long strings of numbers. It enables telecommunicators to convey exact locations to field responders quickly and easily by text, written message, radio or phone call.
what3words is available as a free app and online map. Users can find, share, save and navigate to exact locations using what3words addresses. The app works offline, even without mobile data, users can discover their current what3words location, or enter a what3words address to view a location.
Communicating the right location in an emergency is crucial, but not always easy. Street addresses today do not always point to precise locations, and many parts of America do not have an address; such as parks, forests and coastlines. Moreover, ECCs in the U.S. and around the world rely on the limited information a phone call can provide and the result is often delays in dispatching and responders arriving on scene, under-informed.
what3words technology is used all around the world by businesses and individuals who want to find and share any location down to a 10-foot square. The technology is used across many sectors from automotive to logistics, but crucially, emergency services. Together, RapidSOS and what3words can empower faster and more effective emergency response and provide field responders with the critical information they need to save lives across the United States, and eventually internationally as well.
what3words is the simplest way to talk about location. The system covers the entire world, never needs updating, and works offline. A what3words address is a human-friendly way to share very precise locations with other people, or to input them into platforms and machines such as ride-hailing apps or e-commerce checkouts. It is optimised for voice input and contains built-in error prevention to immediately identify and correct input mistakes.
Location information is crucial for industries like navigation, delivery services, and emergency response systems. Relying solely on traditional postal addresses can be limiting, even in cities. Additionally, certain locations lack specific addresses, such as open fields or temporary event venues. However, event organizers, attendees, and service providers still need a precise way to identify and navigate these sites.
Google Plus Codes (also know as Open Location Code) offer a practical solution by assigning a unique code to each location. This enables easy navigation and identification, even without a standard address. These codes provide an alternative method for encoding and decoding locations, allowing businesses to work with precise location information. Whether it's finding hidden spots on hiking trails, delivering to addressless buildings, or providing emergency services in remote areas, Google Plus Codes are a practical solution.
You can convert a location into a Google Plus Code, and vice versa, without needing an internet connection or relying on online services. There are no complex data tables to look up or restrictions on using the algorithm. It's a straightforward and offline process, allowing you to easily work with Google Plus Codes anytime and anywhere.
Google Plus Codes offer several advantages. They provide a user-friendly representation of locations, making it easier to communicate and share precise coordinates. Plus Codes are easy to read, write, and remember, making them ideal for manual input. They also provide additional context, such as the nearest address or reference point, enhancing navigation and communication purposes.
Yes, Google Plus Codes can be used offline. Since the codes are derived from latitude and longitude coordinates, they can be generated and decoded without the need for an internet connection and 3d party service. This makes Plus Codes a versatile and accessible solution, particularly in areas with limited connectivity.
In emergencies such as when someone is lost, or needs support describing exactly where help is needed, use the app to discover the 3 word address, and provide the details to Brampton Fire and Emergency responders. This app will allow Brampton Fire to respond to emergency calls with more precise location identification, enabling quicker dispatch to the incident site, which is crucial in emergencies.
If someone is in an emergency situation and struggling to describe their location, they can use what3words to provide their location details easily and accurately. A person can find the what3words address for their current location by opening the what3words app. what3words will display the three words for that three metre square location and the caller can provide them to Brampton Fire dispatch, who can enter them into the what3words map in the control room in order to identify the precise location for dispatch.
Depending on the device they are using a caller will be asked to ensure location services are switched on on their device or allow location services on the browser they are using. what3words will display the 3 words for that 3m square location and the caller can provide them to the emergency call handler who can enter them into the what3words map in the control room in order to identify the precise location for dispatch.
In Canada, where what3words has only just begun to be used there have already been two successful uses - where lost hikers were located and brought to safety in Manitoba and Ontario. In each of these instances, what3words made it easy for the emergency services to identify exactly where the incident was, and help was quickly dispatched to its precise location.
I mostly agree with the OP's gripes, but at the same time acknowledge that some form of projection from decimal degree coordinates to an equivalent tokenized form, whether it be 3 words or something else, can be useful. For instance, in some places in Dubai (my family have recently moved there) there are simply no street addresses. Directions are very much like "down the hill, to the right, near the clump of trees, 50m onwards and near the green bin outside the iron gates opposite the ditch". Clearly this sort of arrangement could benefit from some sort of simplified/tokenized geocoding of a location for addressing purposes - but yes, again I don't think W3W is particularly useful or clever for that matter. Conceptually at a high level it's intentions seem good, but the way it's implemented is not particularly useful - to my mind anyway. Promoting it as something useful to emergency services... uhm... no. Location of fire hydrants or trees or something, or just a rough address of a property - yes perhaps. But it should not be so guarded and shrouded in proprietary secrecy - as the OP says, if it's of any use, open source it. Stop this possessive behavior and attitude of "I've reinvented the world and it's mine mine mine"...
We're back to use cases, yet again. In some use cases you'd have access offline -- but there are lots of use cases, including those W3W themselves tout (like being given a W3W location in lieu of an address, or emergency services asking for your W3W location) where there's no reason to assume the consumer would have an app pre-installed. In that case, yes, you need a live network connection to either dereference the W3W location into a lat/lon (in the former case) or look up your current W3W location (in the latter case). This is because the actual product that W3W sells is basically a database -- you can download it, or you can make lookups over the network, but because it's a closed product, it's never going to be included (especially offline) in the mapping software you're already using.
Replying to myself:
Of course, someone could invent a wonderful app which would determine your location and send the coordinates to a telephone number or email address that you type into a field. Or it could send it to the SMS aware number of a standard emergency organisation in your country, state, town, or whatever, automatically determining what emergency number to use: 112, 000, 911, etc.