Technology has made the whole process of navigation much simpler and relatively easy to obtain data on travel time, distance, traffic and arrival times. But what if you don’t have a postcode for your destination. Suppose it is a field in the middle of the countryside or a layby on an unfamiliar A road.
To deal with this some bright spark invented what3words: a geolocation app designed to make it easier to pinpoint precise locations using three-word co-ordinates when an address either doesn’t exist or won’t suffice.
The app has proved enormously successful since its launch a decade ago, with more than 50 million smartphone downloads in dozens of countries. It is used for everything from car satnavs to music festival maps and food delivery, and has become vital for people with accessibility issues, who can direct taxis to the step-free side-entrance of a building instead of being left outside its unhelpful front doors.
What3words is now turning its attention to even more important matters: saving lives. The geocoordinates are being adopted by emergency services in the UK and beyond to track down people in need of help more quickly. Call takers at control rooms are trained to collect as much location information as possible from callers, and what3words has proven to be useful when identifying exactly where to send assistance.
How useful could the application help the average classic car owner? Well the obvious answer is to find a show or meeting in an obscure field somewhere. But what about a medical emergency, or a breakdown.
It is easy to use and you simply find your location on a map or ariel photo in the app. It will then give you three words, accurate to 3 meters, that will identify the location to anyone you share it with.
Download the app on your mobile phone through the usual app providers.
Thank you for this post. We were introduced to What3Words by the recovery driver ( ex REME) who came to pick us up after the fuel pump failed in our classic near Masham three years ago. Rescue services were already using it but it did not seem to be well understood. It is amazing that it can find people up mountains and in the open sea !