what 3 words

[Paul H]

It's become quite popular with Deliveroo customers, the under 25's anyway, they include it in the delivery notes. I'd never had that a year ago, now it's on about 20% of orders, it's certainly better than the apps own locator. Straight to the door, instead of about the right street and going up and down looking for numbers...  I wouldn't want to rely on it in a life threatening situation, though it can slightly improve the chances of your burger still being lukewarm and your drink a little less spilt, which for some seems to be a satisfactory outcome.

[rr]

I am reminded of this
https://archive.org/details/tac-31/page/12/mode/2up

Sent from my motorola edge 20 using Tapatalk

[Kim]

It's become quite popular with Deliveroo customers, the under 25's anyway, they include it in the delivery notes. I'd never had that a year ago, now it's on about 20% of orders, it's certainly better than the apps own locator. Straight to the door, instead of about the right street and going up and down looking for numbers...  I wouldn't want to rely on it in a life threatening situation, though it can slightly improve the chances of your burger still being lukewarm and your drink a little less spilt, which for some seems to be a satisfactory outcome.

This is exactly the sort of thing it was designed for.   

(Though, tbh, if you're making an order using an app on a device with GPS, why can it not just send exact coordinates to the courier's app on a device with GPS?)

[Cudzoziemiec]

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2022/aug/17/manchester-united-elon-musk-cristiano-ronaldo

[JellyLegs]

Having thought on this, the big issue here is that we appear to be using / pushing an incorrect solution in W3W to cover for the fact we haven’t implemented AML.  All the information from EENA says the UK has it fully implemented and BT, EE and others have given out press releases saying it is up and running yet it simply hasn’t reached me on the front line yet.  Why? 

I have no idea where the blockage is.  The message standard looks pretty comprehensive.  If the endpoints are functioning as claimed then it should be simple to retrieve the info in real time and display it in Control Rooms and on the mobile data terminals on all front line appliances.  Not only would it be invaluable information for us, it would cut malicious calls overnight.   It would also reduce  risk to public and firefighters alike from unnecessary high speed blue light movements.

Is it down to cost?  If so then then that is poor as it should very quickly pay for itself with the reduction in the numbers of assets sent to search for unclear locations  Is it technology issues and a lack of the right professional skills to drive forward this type of project?  The fire service certainly had have history with the expensive shambles of the regional control centres project way back in 2008.  Or is it a case of once burned, twice shy creating a reticence to adopt new technology after that fiasco?

Our use of W3W also puts onus and cost on to individual firefighters as well as the public.  We are using our personal phones to convert W3W locations back to locations on maps and navigate to them as our appliances don’t have sat nav capability and certainly not one that is portable across fields etc when on foot.  That’s using our data allowance, putting an app on our phones that we otherwise wouldn’t have etc.

[Kim]

These are compelling questions.  My guess is 'not invented here' syndrome, or because it's not being pushed by a an entity with wider commercial goals.  (W3W's interest in emergency services is surely as a means to becoming a de-facto standard for sharing locations, rather than the profit they stand to make from licencing software to emergency services.)

Possibly something that could benefit from some FOI requests?

[Cudzoziemiec]

Both AML and W3W are UK inventions/companies, so it's not "not invented here" syndrome. My guess for why UK emergency operators aren't using AML is just that it's been deemed too expensive to invest in the necessary reception tech.

[JellyLegs]

I don’t think the reception tech is the issue as that seems, from what I can find, to be up and running.  That’s the endpoint for the SMS message that BT etc have set up according to my interpretation of their press release.  My understanding (limited - I have just spent a couple of hours reading EENA’s specification and implementation documents) is that the AML messages are now coming in to BT / EE as the service provider when their call centres “stage 1” handle the emergency call (the “which service do you require” bit when you dial 999 before you get connected to Police / Fire or whoever).  These messages should be stored and be accessible to the emergency services via an endpoint somewhere so that their systems can extract them and filter the ones they want in real time.  It’s this extraction and presentation to the fire service control room operators that doesn’t seem to be happening.  Control room systems are purchased on relatively long term contracts as they are complicated to change and expensive to buy both financially and in terms of staff time.  There are only a few players in the market.  I think it is fair to say that some of those have had real problems recently with reliability of their installations at some services.  It could be that some of these suppliers can’t, or have decided not to, implement AML in their systems but it seems unlikely that they would all do this.  It could also be that some services have decided not to risk implementing AML by shoehorning it into an installation that has already shown instability. Again it seems unlikely they would all do this.  I am genuinely unsure why we haven’t implemented it.  I might make a few discrete enquiries when I next speak with an appropriate person  and see if they are able to shed any light. 

[Cudzoziemiec]

Would it not be specified when emergency services were buying control room systems?

[JellyLegs]

My guess is now yes, but long term nature of these contracts means iirc my service last went about purchasing a new system in 2012 for implementation in 2014.  I would hope that the imminent replacement for this system will have a requirement to implement AML as a priority.

[JellyLegs]

One thing I found buried away ion the web and not directly relevant to the UK but interesting none the less was figures for AML in New Zealand from 2021.  Seventy five percent of all genuine calls to the emergency services returned an AML message, 15% were received within 15 seconds and 97% within 30 seconds.  If replicated in the UK this would compare to our target of mobilising the correct resources within 60 seconds of the call being connected.

[mrcharly-YHT]

Having thought on this, the big issue here is that we appear to be using / pushing an incorrect solution in W3W to cover for the fact we haven’t implemented AML.

I absolutely agree with your point here.

Why not adopt AML? Why W3W?

My guess, purely based on experience, is that the people who make these decisions simply don't understand technology. W3W have very good marketing and it is simple to demonstrate. Doesn't make it good, but  . . .

One high-tech employer I had was looking into a new source control system. They rejected Git, because

Git isn't professional software

Total ignorance. Git doesn't have a slick marketing department that takes you to nice lunches.

W3W is very good at marketing. It is a good product for some niches (like delivery drivers, but I hope they'd still check a house number).

[JellyLegs]

Having thought on this, the big issue here is that we appear to be using / pushing an incorrect solution in W3W to cover for the fact we haven’t implemented AML.

I absolutely agree with your point here.

Why not adopt AML? Why W3W?

My guess, purely based on experience, is that the people who make these decisions simply don't understand technology. W3W have very good marketing and it is simple to demonstrate. Doesn't make it good, but  . . .

I doubt the two decisions will have been taken at the same level.  The decision to implement or not implement AML would have some big implications and as a sizeable project would be taken at board level by strategic decision makers.  The operational staff may not even have known any decision was being taken.    The decision, such as it was, to offer support for W3W will have been an operational level attempt to solve a problem we definitely have with locating mobile callers.  The people driving it won’t have been IT professionals but rather control operators who have the problem day in day out and thought they had identified a solution. IT may have cast a quick eye over it before publicity went out but no more.  I work as a developer for a private sector company in one of my jobs as well as being an on call firefighter.  I have much more of an understanding of closed v open source etc but as I showed yesterday, even I got drawn into the solving the problem without considering why the selected solution wasn’t the right one, wasn’t even addressing the right questions and may do more damage going forward.   I can fully understand why our control operators and frontline firefighters may see W3W as a solution when they only have a user’s understanding of the issues.

All the above is just my guesswork.  I need to be a little careful here, as I am aware another yacfer may well have had a seat at the above table until his retirement.  He  will almost certainly have a lot more insight into any process than I have and I don’t want to tread on his toes or accidentally spread misinformation when I wasn’t party to any decision making process. I can also understand he may not want / think it appropriate to comment.

[JellyLegs]

I might make a few discrete enquiries when I next speak with an appropriate person  and see if they are able to shed any light.

Well, I struck lucky with my first enquiry.  The answers I got were :

• AML is working and we can access the endpoint and extract the data
• Our existing control room system integrates with the AML endpoint
• The installation of our existing control room system has, right from day 1 been subject to crashes, freezes and go slows.  The reasons behind this have never been successfully dealt with.  There are a number of functions that the service would like to turn on but whenever they try, the system threatens to fall over so they remain inactive despite the fact that they would be extremely valuable to us.
• The requirements for the new system included the proven ability to implement AML.
  

I was aware that another important function promised with this system back on 2014 had never materialised but wasn’t aware that multiple bits of functionality had been affected.  No doubt incredibly frustrating for those involved and for frontline staff and imho a complete shambles that has dragged on far too long.   Surely the nettle should have been grasped long ago and if a fix couldn’t be found then a new solution should have been sought?  Or is that a naive viewpoint?

Just as an aside, I checked the current marketing brochure of the system we currently use and no mention of AML integration but it does bring the prospective purchaser’s attention to “ What3Words integration for location finding”. 

[quixoticgeek]

Just an ambulance service promoting what three words...

Now check that location out in w3w...

J

[Kim]

Wow, it's real.  As is the weird blurring in the photo.

Deliberate, or standard ironic incompetence?

[grams]

The Javascript Console on the W3W website says "[Warning] Google Maps JavaScript API warning: RetiredVersion https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/javascript/error-messages#retired-version (util.js, line 244)" so all I see is a sea of grid squares.

Oh well, I'll just use one of the open source alternative w3w decoders.

[Cudzoziemiec]

names.rank.forest is in Essex, and has actual satellite imagery and mapping, but I'm assuming NEAS is North-Eastern. Maybe it's North Essex? Maybe it's not that place...

Anyway the weirdest thing to me is the lack of mapping or satellite imagery in the other options. Cos it's not just that the map is blank, it's simply not there. So much for delivering McChicken to the nomad suburbs of Ulan Batar.

[mrcharly-YHT]

I might make a few discrete enquiries when I next speak with an appropriate person  and see if they are able to shed any light.

Well, I struck lucky with my first enquiry.  The answers I got were :

• AML is working and we can access the endpoint and extract the data
• Our existing control room system integrates with the AML endpoint
• The installation of our existing control room system has, right from day 1 been subject to crashes, freezes and go slows.  The reasons behind this have never been successfully dealt with.  There are a number of functions that the service would like to turn on but whenever they try, the system threatens to fall over so they remain inactive despite the fact that they would be extremely valuable to us.
• The requirements for the new system included the proven ability to implement AML.
  

I was aware that another important function promised with this system back on 2014 had never materialised but wasn’t aware that multiple bits of functionality had been affected.  No doubt incredibly frustrating for those involved and for frontline staff and imho a complete shambles that has dragged on far too long.   Surely the nettle should have been grasped long ago and if a fix couldn’t be found then a new solution should have been sought?  Or is that a naive viewpoint?

Just as an aside, I checked the current marketing brochure of the system we currently use and no mention of AML integration but it does bring the prospective purchaser’s attention to “ What3Words integration for location finding”.

That is a mixture of good news and 'expected as usual' for underfunded IT implementations.

Is it possible to find out how the control room staff can retrieve the AML information?

Nothing wrong with using both; it would be good practice to cross check the location from AML against other information (such as W3W or 'we are on the A16 past the turnoff for services').

[Kim]

Nothing wrong with using both; it would be good practice to cross check the location from AML against other information

Indeed.  If the device can't get a GPS signal, the position could be highly inaccurate (though looking at the AML spec, the handset should report the positioning method and an estimated level of confidence as part of the message).  It's also possible to spoof a location using developer tools, which is conceivably the sort of thing you might forget you were doing if an emergency situation interrupted your hacking session.

[FifeingEejit]

One high-tech employer I had was looking into a new source control system. They rejected Git, because

Git isn't professional software

Total ignorance. Git doesn't have a slick marketing department that takes you to nice lunches.

Git's a crappy wee command line tool that does great stuff
So does del, rm, mv etc.

Wrap a UI over them though and that's your lunch sorted...

[JellyLegs]

Is it possible to find out how the control room staff can retrieve the AML information?

It may be possible.  I think I have a contact who may know the answer to that but I may not get the opportunity to speak with them for a few days due to annual leave.

[Kim]

Oh look, the government's queueue-for-the-Queen livestream is using What3Words.  Badly:

https://twitter.com/jmbatchelor/status/1570060105768370176

[grams]

The thing that's shit about this is that while the w3w website acknowledges you might have misheard and offers alternate suggestions, it only ever offers two of them, neither of which are correct.

If it were designed to be properly useful, it would offer a long list of all plausible alternatives, but of course that would be embarrassing because there are probably hundreds, so marketing wins over usefulness*.

And if it were a proper standard and not stupid rent-seeking, someone else could build a website that does this.

(* I'd like to think the emergency service integrations aren't so limited, but that's wishful thinking, isn't it?)

[JellyLegs]

Is it possible to find out how the control room staff can retrieve the AML information?

It may be possible.  I think I have a contact who may know the answer to that but I may not get the opportunity to speak with them for a few days due to annual leave.

Still working on this.  No joy as yet.