what 3 words

[Tim Hall]

The OS Locate app for smartphones (free) provides a compass and a location in OSGB Grid Ref.

Needs no phone signal, it just does a Co-ordinate Reference System transform from the GPS WGS-84 to OSGB.
It's a handy companion app to a map and compass.
It's also got a view which emulates a classic Silva compass ( including the Silva logo )!

The compass emulator looks nifty. It has a rotatable bezel.

[Kim]

Are you moving when you check compass function?

Moving or stopped. I think it's just because the phone itself is old and fairly basic, as smarties go, like Feanor says.

Might be that the phone has a magnetometer, but also has a magnetic case?

[Hot Flatus]

Finally got round to putting in my address into what3words to see what came up. Seems a good idea. Nice and concise and easy to remember: cunt.lives.here

[quixoticgeek]

Finally got round to putting in my address into what3words to see what came up. Seems a good idea. Nice and concise and easy to remember: cunt.lives.here

You do not live in downing street.

Nice try tho.

J

[Polar Bear]

Finally got round to putting in my address into what3words to see what came up. Seems a good idea. Nice and concise and easy to remember: cunt.lives.here

You do not live in downing street.

Nice try tho.

J

I have it on dubious authority that Hot Flatus is in fact called Carrie in real life and has been well and truly screwed by bozo.  🤮  😉

[L CC]

To: Rapha London
I might have undertaken your compass challenge, but I cannot condone what 3 words. Really? Here in the UK where the Ordnance Survey provide beautiful, accurate maps, you choose to use some monetising app-based triumph of form over function.
What a load of shite.

Hi $RealName,

We apologise for disappointing you but like 100 of the UK's emergency services we also find the app extremely useful.

We hope you'll join a challenge in the future.

All the best,

[Jaded]

There are over 100 emergency services in the UK? :boggle:

[citoyen]

So where is AML going wrong in the UK? Why is it not being used? It's in most phones, so that's probably not the problem. Do emergency operators have the facility to use it? And if so, how do they get it to the actual emergency personnel? When you make an emergency call in the UK, you speak to an operator, who then alerts the relevant emergency service(s): I'm not sure if the operator passes your location and problem to the ambulance/fire/police/etc dispatchers who then pass it on to the relevant persons or if the operator contacts the personnel directly, but is this step the problem? The operator's equipment has the location from AML but they need something verbal to give to the cops and rescuers?

The line peddled in the (pro-W3W) media is that it has so far proved difficult to integrate AML into the computer-aided dispatch system. Your phone can send your location to the 999 operator easily via SMS, but then the operator needs to forward that information to eg the ambulance driver.

What I'm struggling to understand is why this is a problem when using AML but apparently not a problem when using W3W.

My best guess is that someone at W3W has recognised the commercial value of making sure it can be done easily, so they have borne the cost of implementing it. Maybe the problem is that there's no commercial incentive for doing the same for AML.

[Cudzoziemiec]

What form does AML send your location in? If it's done by triangulation from cellphone towers, presumably it's three strings of digits. That could be texted to the crews but they then need a way of relating that to the ground. Whereas three words can be easily texted or repeated verbally and located via the app. OTOH if AML transmits the location as, say, lat/long, then it really should be usable by the emergency crews.

Whatever the reason, it would seem this map is therefore wrong:

https://eena.org/our-work/eena-special-focus/advanced-mobile-location/

[grams]

My best guess is that someone at W3W has recognised the commercial value of making sure it can be done easily, so they have borne the cost of implementing it. Maybe the problem is that there's no commercial incentive for doing the same for AML.

My guess would be W3W has been "integrated" via the operator copy and pasting values into their website, whereas AML integrations require teams of developers and project managers and lots of teeth-sucking and chin-scratching meetings and years long development roadmaps.

[grams]

OTOH if AML transmits the location as, say, lat/long, then it really should be usable by the emergency crews.

All smartphones have hardware GPS and will have no problem sending long/lat in some format, even when they're doing cell triangulation. My assumption is the problem is getting it from the phone network to the operator's screen because nothing else makes sense.

(I'm perhaps naively assuming that the operator can send a long/lat to the ambulance crews electronically and they're not using w3w for that part of the chain...)

[L CC]

One of the things that irritated me was the route planning part.
Give me a grid reference and I can choose way there on the same map.
Apparently I'd need to ask the app to navigate me to the point using google maps 

[citoyen]

What form does AML send your location in? If it's done by triangulation from cellphone towers, presumably it's three strings of digits. That could be texted to the crews but they then need a way of relating that to the ground. Whereas three words can be easily texted or repeated verbally and located via the app. OTOH if AML transmits the location as, say, lat/long, then it really should be usable by the emergency crews.

ETA: to answer your first question: "The services uses either a global navigation satellite system or WiFi depending on which one is better at the given moment."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Mobile_Location

What is the line of communication between 999 operators and ambulance drivers? How is the information passed along?

In theory, sending a text message is simple enough, but how does the operator know which ambulance driver to send it to, let alone have their mobile phone number?

I assume the CAD system is set up such that the 999 operator doesn't need to know who is driving the ambulance.

My guess would be W3W has been "integrated" via the operator copy and pasting values into their website

Same questions apply as regards how the operator passes on the info.

If they can do it for W3W, there should be no technological barrier to doing the same with AML. All they are doing is passing on a piece of data. If the end user (ambulance driver) has the means to use W3W data (a phone), they also have the means to use AML data.

I assume that like Deliveroo riders, individual ambulance drivers will pick up 'jobs' from the queue via whatever CAD app they use. Why is it that W3W data can be added to the job details but AML data can't? Am I missing something blindingly obvious?

[citoyen]

One of the things that irritated me was the route planning part.
Give me a grid reference and I can choose way there on the same map.
Apparently I'd need to ask the app to navigate me to the point using google maps 

Fuck that for a game of soldiers.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/jul/16/google-maps-suggests-potentially-fatal-routes-up-ben-nevis-say-mountain-charities

[quixoticgeek]

There are over 100 emergency services in the UK? :boggle:

Kent fire and rescue service, suffolk fire service, london fire brigade, London Ambulance service.

And that's before you get into Kent Search and Rescue, Sussex Search and Rescue, Buxton MRT, Edale MRT, etc...

J

[Jaded]

Fire. Ambulance. Police. Coastguard.

I make 4 - any advance on that?

[Kim]

What form does AML send your location in? If it's done by triangulation from cellphone towers, presumably it's three strings of digits. That could be texted to the crews but they then need a way of relating that to the ground. Whereas three words can be easily texted or repeated verbally and located via the app. OTOH if AML transmits the location as, say, lat/long, then it really should be usable by the emergency crews.

ETA: to answer your first question: "The services uses either a global navigation satellite system or WiFi depending on which one is better at the given moment."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Mobile_Location

Yes, the phone works out its own location using whatever means it has available.  Realistically, that's GPS falling back to cellular positioning.  But the OS vendor could, in principle, display a map for the user to click on or whateer.  Using a WiFi SSID location database lookup for this application would seem to be a liability, but ultimately that's up to the phone.

What is the line of communication between 999 operators and ambulance drivers? How is the information passed along?

In theory, sending a text message is simple enough, but how does the operator know which ambulance driver to send it to, let alone have their mobile phone number?

Presumably the same way they send "heart attack" or "car crash".  You'd hope that there would be some sort of database system whereby the 999 operator receives the CID and AML data, passes it on to the emergency services operator at the time of transferring the call, and their system does some database lookups to provide an address based on phone number, and sends that - along with the AML location and whatever information is given verbally to the operator - to the ambulance computer terminal thingy.

That presumably means several incompatible systems implemented by lowest-bidder providers, glued together by under-trained and overworked human beings.  That's what it means to be BRITISH.

[citoyen]

Fire. Ambulance. Police. Coastguard.

I make 4 - any advance on that?

Don't forget the AA! 

But as QG says, for the purposes of this discussion, each regional service operator is counted as a separate entity.

[quixoticgeek]

Fire. Ambulance. Police. Coastguard.

I make 4 - any advance on that?

RNLI, Mountain rescue, cave rescue, lowland search and rescue.

However, While in concept there are only 8 or so. The reality is KSAR and SUSSAR and Breacon MRT, and KFRS and SFS, and LAS, and LFB are all independent. They have their own funding, their own management structures. They are essentially each a different emergency service.

J

[Kim]

Fire. Ambulance. Police. Coastguard.

I make 4 - any advance on that?

Don't forget the AA! 

Papa Johns is the fourth emergency service of the apocalypse.

[Kim]

I don't think anyone's mentioned the other advantage of AML over systems like SARLOC or W3W: It doesn't require *any* interaction with the user, which means it works if they're unable or unwilling to speak/read/type.  Just starting an emergency call is enough.

Consider people with communication impairments or who are too seriously injured to communicate; phones that are damaged; people who don't speak English; those covertly calling for help at the scene of a crime; toddlers calling 999 cos they learned it on Fireman Sam^[1] when their parent collapses, etc.

ETA: It would also be potentially useful for tracking down the perpetrators of hoax calls.


_{[1] Other emergency-services-themed televisual entertainments for the under-5s are available.}

[Jaded]

Fire. Ambulance. Police. Coastguard.

I make 4 - any advance on that?

Don't forget the AA! 

But as QG says, for the purposes of this discussion, each regional service operator is counted as a separate entity.

I guess it is all free market forces.

"Hello, I need the Police please. Could you send me some Northumberland Police, they are much better than the Met."

[grams]

OK, having looked at the W3W website I'm even more horrified.
https://what3words.com/business/emergency/

From the screen shot shown it looks like the CAD systems are so shit that they are pasting the W3W address directly into the database free text field and expecting crews on the ground to use it. WTF?

Although there's also a nearby (thought not exactly the same) pre-filled easting/northing on the top right of the same screen, so it's completely redundant.

[Jaded]

I don't think anyone's mentioned the other advantage of AML over systems like SARLOC or W3W: It doesn't require *any* interaction with the user, which means it works if they're unable or unwilling to speak/read/type.  Just starting an emergency call is enough.

Consider people with communication impairments or are too seriously injured to communicate; people who don't speak English; those covertly calling for help at the scene of a crime; toddlers calling 999 cos they learned it on Fireman Sam when their parent collapses, etc.

Add people that have difficulty with spelling.

[citoyen]

Papa Johns is the fourth emergency service of the apocalypse.

Oh, that is wonderful! Shame I missed that thread before.