What Three Words - Global Addressing System

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09-15-2015 10:39 AM
JeffWard
Occasional Contributor III

I saw a tweet today about immigration offices in Thailand having three word addresses and was directed to this site - www.what3words.com.

I watched the video and checked out the map.  It is an intriguing system, I was wondering what you folks thought about it.

I assign addresses in my position as well as deal with addresses in error, or people that don't know their address (it happens more than you would think).  Remembering three words would be easier than a number a street a city a state/province and a postal code.

There's less to screw up, but my initial thoughts are spelling and transposition.  Also regardless of how much easier it is to remember three words you still need to get there using the transportation network.  Emergency personnel can use parts of a traditional address to know the general location of an incident whereas with three random (and they are random) words nobody is going to know where that is until they plug it into the web site.

What do you think about it?

Jeff Ward
Summit County, Utah
40 Replies
ChrisDonohue__GISP
MVP Alum

To continue the discussion:

One element I see as a potential drawback in W3W is the lack of predictable arrangement as one moves from one area to another. 

For example, with a traditional street address system one can get a sense of where things are because their is a predictable arrangement.  If someone says they are at 2000 J Street and need to go to 2400 J Street, their already is a known directionality to work with.  Just looking at the addresses posted on the street, an observer can see the progression.  Plus in some places, the cross-street correlates with the address.  So if someone said to meet them at 2000 J Street in Sacramento, California, a local person would know that the meeting is at the corner of 20th Street and J Street, as that area has gridded streets where the addressing correlates with the street grid.  My point here being a person can see the progression and find things intuitively, without having to pull out a technology device.

In contrast if someone says they are at tone.season.detail and wants to go to ozone.remote.earth (which are the W3W equivalents to 2000 J Street and 2400 J Street), without technology and the W3W system, you will be hard-put to figure out where to go intuitively.  As one moves from 2000 J Street to 2400 J Street, the W3W addresses progression is tend.zips.this, sits.moment.than, factories.washed.cities, proper.even.hogs.  Their is no predictable order, so one cannot even figure out if they are going the correct way on J Street towards their destination.  Figuring out where to go will require technology.  Food for thought - is that a good thing?

Chris Donohue, GISP

DarrenWiens2
MVP Honored Contributor

Buuuut, that's not the point of W3W. There is already an addressing system that does what you describe, that includes the drawbacks that W3W is intended to overcome, or at least think about.

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ChrisDonohue__GISP
MVP Alum

I think I'm missing something.  Are you saying W3W would work in conjunction with a traditional addressing system?  (uh, oh, my addressing workload just doubled! )

Chris Donohue, GISP

DarrenWiens2
MVP Honored Contributor

I think the entire use case is completely different from traditional addressing. There are lots of reasons why street addressing and XY coordinates are useful - that's why we use them! W3W is just a different way to communicate and think about location, especially in places where traditional addressing doesn't work well. As far as I know, your street signs are safe.

Are you saying W3W would work in conjunction with a traditional addressing system?

If you consider XY coordinates (lat/long) a traditional addressing system, then yes it does depend on that. The API does two main things, converts W3W to lat/long and back again.

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JoeBorgione
MVP Emeritus

Seems there are a couple of discussions on this topic; this one and one that was more recently started. ( https://community.esri.com/thread/171171 )  In the other one I commented that the W3W is fun for discussions, but I'm not really a supporter of it for more practical applications.  I work in 9-1-1 in the USA and its 2016...

That said, let me temper that response with maybe this could work in the right context. Consider the image below.  My guess is the large high rises are probably addressed in a traditional fashion.  What about the low rises in the foreground?  Something tells me there is nothing on the books resembling a traditional addressing system.

This is a view of Rio that NBC didn't bring us during their Olympic coverage.

Qual é o endereço da sua emergência ?  (Portuguese for What is the address of your emergency)

A little closer to home in South Eastern Utah is a huge Navajo Nation Reservation.  Same sort of thing with respect to traditional addressing:

 

Image result for navajo reservation utah housing

That should just about do it....
ChrisDonohue__GISP
MVP Alum

At the ESRI Conference last week there was a presentation by the US Marine Corps of how they are modernizing the addressing of all their bases throughout the world to be NextGen 911 compatible.  This included using the What Three Words system as a fallback besides the more traditional street centerlines and address points.  Their rationale was that if someone was far out on a training range or another location where there were not traditional addresses they still could be located as long as they had a smart phone.  The dispatcher could instruct the caller to download the free What Three Words app and then ask them what three words popped up.  This would give responders a 3 meter locational accuracy instead of the far less accurate fix from triangulating cell phone signals.

911 GIS 

Chris Donohue, GISP

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JeffWard
Occasional Contributor III

I still wonder about a spelling problem. We are returning to 19th century spellers, relying too heavily on spellcheck.

Jeff Ward
Summit County, Utah
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DarrenWiens2
MVP Honored Contributor

Are you more likely to make a mistake spelling a real word, or writing down a list of numbers?

ChrisDonohue__GISP
MVP Alum

Actually, Jeff Ward  has a good point, which won't be obvious to people who don't do 911.  Will the dispatcher who receives the call write down the 3 words with the correct spelling, given that words can be misheard and some words sound alike.  Going further with this, I wonder if anyone has done an analysis of all the words chosen to be used in the What Three Words system to identify if there are words that sound alike and therefore can be mistaken?  Sort of like the Soundex searches we do in evaluating road names to ensure they are not so similar in name that the pronunciation could make a dispatcher choose the wrong one.

Chris Donohue, GISP

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JoeBorgione
MVP Emeritus

GPS apps are a dime (or less) a dozen for phones: I have one that allows me to text my lat/long.  Hopefully I'll never use it....

That should just about do it....
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