What3words app helps get urgent assistance to cyclist who was injured after skidding on oil

But have you enabled the feature on your phone? On my (Android) there is a specific setting to toggle in Location Settings

I think it varies across the EU how its used, but the 112 cell location is limited in that it provides them the location of the mobile phone tower your phone is connecting to, the more remote the location, the more spread out cells are and the wider the location theyd then have to search to find you, and thats ignoring some of the quirks in coastal areas where its sometimes possible to hook up to mobile services in different countries

but the UK actually developed a thing called advanced mobile location,which shares geolocation data automatically via sms to emergency call centre operators without any user intervention, as in you make an emergency phone call & your phone automatically sends an sms with enhanced location data to the emergency services telling them where you are, which both Apple/Google have now implemented in their phones and is being adopted worldwide.

of course it being a typically British thing, they didnt spend years boasting about it or doing marketing campaigns to increase awareness of it, its just there doing its thing in the background and just works without most people even aware their phone is capable of doing it.

so you dont really need W3W as an app, in the UK at least, if your phone is roughly no more than 8 years old.

Interesting info. That explains why I had assumed on making the 112 call that the operator would either already know in some level of detail my location (even if it's only approx). I was surprised at the reaction of the call handler, but then in Germany especially I think that the personal data protection policy will be more of a "big deal" - and they would at least want an "opt in" per call.  Assigning it at the level only of the phone hardware or firmware (the firmware is carrier/national specific) would most likely be problematic in DE/EU. What might appear logical for typical Brit culture that "it makes sense that when someone calls 999/112 they likely want help, and as such automatically deliver consent to granting location data" - that approach doesn't map well across cultures.  The point I wished to make is that many of us read articles on cycling that are "global" as per the reach of the Internet, but every region/country may not react as you might expect them to when you call 999/112.  I had WTW on my phone and had encouraged others to do same, but it turns out it's really only useful here for cyclists if you are asking a friend to come and rescue you from a major cycling mechanical Nothing more advanced than "name the road you are on" was of any use to me.  When I told them I wasn't actually on a road they told me to move to the nearest (!).

The point is that you can make all best preparations with apps etc, but when you actually need to make that call the circumstances will almost never be those you planned for if you stick to only one solution.  You might not even be using your own device to make the call.  I concluded the only approach is to simply try and know where you are all the time such that you could describe it to someone "living in another generation" (no apps, Internet, GPS etc or will to use them) - only a form to complete where one madatory field is "streetname".  What would be good is if a journalist on a platform with a global reach (I'm thinking something for the GCN/GMBN/GTN under the Discovery group) might investigate, bringing together the policies across multiple countries and letting us know what to expect.

Awavey wrote:

but the 112 cell location is limited in that it provides them the location of the mobile phone tower your phone is connecting to

Not according to Google, who should know since they make the system:
Send your location in an emergency

no they are two different things, ELS is the advanced mobile location (AML) service which your phone operating software is coded to use as much of its tech, that helps locate you, and sends that info along to an emergency operator

cell location is just the basic location service for 112, essentially just the location of the cell tower your phone is connecting with, which is something your mobile network provider shares with emergency operators when it connects the call for you.

and cell location is definitely not as accurate as the advanced mobile location, because thats what led to advanced mobile location services being developed in the first place.

When was this?

The EU Parliament passed the EECC (European Electronic Communications Code) directive in 2018 that, among other things, requires emergency call centres for the European Emergency Number (112) must be equipped for receiving location information from mobile phones. The open standard for this is AML.

Member states had a deadline of 21 Dec. 2020 to implement that; I can't quite find information when Germany equipped all stations with it; this was probably not rolled out nationwide at the same date as it's a regional matter.

BT/EE/HTC developed,trialled and made the open standard called AML in 2014. its ETSI TS 103 625 if you want to get technical about it. They then advocated,along with EENA (european emergency number association) for the EU to adopt it formally, which they did in 2018.

AML was deployed in Germany October 2019.

the EECC setup the standardised european emergency number (112) the deadline to do that was 21 Dec 2020.

that directive also stated that member states should include network-based location information (ie cell location) and, where available, handset-derived caller location information (ie AML). To support this the PSAP (ie emergency operators) network of the member states would have to be upgraded to support AML.

only 19 of the member states  had complied with that directive by that deadline, Spain, Portugal & Italy to name the obvious states missing at the moment, and only 6 member states accept AML from roaming users.

ng112 is likely the next big development in this field using 5g and IoT (internet of things)

Awavey wrote:

but the UK actually developed a thing ... of course it being a typically British thing ...

Cool how everything becomes a projection space for British nationalism and Brits never tire of telling everybody about how great they are.

For us internationalists it seems more an example of why nationalism is misguided. This standard was developed in UK, but the operating system of the phone is US-American or Finnish/International (Android is based on Linux), the electronics in the phone is probably Chinese, the satellites for the location are US (GPS), European (Galileo) or Russian (GLONASS). Not to mention that the mathematics behind all this is from all over the World, from the Ancient Near East via India and Arabia to various European contributions.

no it wasnt nationalism at all, whenever discussions come up about What3Words, everybody highlights what a great idea it is, how useful it is and howcome no-one thought about it before, what a great little app it is.

at which point those that know about this stuff, have to point out actually 7 years ago telecom companies in Britain collabratively with tech companies from across the globe led the development,trials and made standards that have been adopted by international standards bodies, for producing something that accurately locates your mobile phone already and shares it automatically for you and you dont even realise it

so why not save all your kudos'ing for those unsung heros who actually have saved peoples lives for developing that solution and work because they realised what was there wasnt good enough, and have never sought fame, nor the limelight from it, and never sought to monetise it, or license it, or patent it. it just, to borrow an Apple phrase, works.

Was there anything stopping you using Google Maps whilst on the call to identify the road/street?

It is more likely that this was diesel leaking from an HGV or similar.

very slippery diesel spills are the bane of motorcyclists in these sorts of areas..

If it's the stretch of road I suspect it won't be an HGV but likely a farm vehicle. 

hirsute wrote:

Plenty of other native apps that are not proprietary.
You can send an SMS of your Google maps location and it will open up in maps the other end.

And if you are going out to remote areas you need a proper map, compass and GPS with decent battery life. Don't rely on a phone battery.

Why not? All the rest of the GPS tech arsenal is no help if you can't rely on your phone's battery to get the coordinates sent.

Because you can still get lost.

hirsute wrote:

Because you can still get lost.

But it's not about being lost or not, it's about communicating your position to the emergency services. No amount of boyscoutery will help if you refuse to rely on your phone and its battery. At which point it might as well give your location as well.

You seem to be missing the point that you should not rely on your phone not that you refuse to rely on a phone. A phone is useful but if you go off into the wilds you should not be thinking that 'I'll just use my phone'. That just leads to unnecessary calls to mountain rescue or other emergency services due to poor preparation.

hirsute wrote:

You seem to be missing the point that you should not rely on your phone not that you refuse to rely on a phone. A phone is useful but if you go off into the wilds you should not be thinking that 'I'll just use my phone'. That just leads to unnecessary calls to mountain rescue or other emergency services due to poor preparation.

 

Got any other suggestions for what you should rely on to phone for help?

Did you think then there is 100 % phone coverage?
Considering you told me about all the spares you carry, I'm surprised you put so much reliance on a phone digging you out of trouble.

And you would use your Acme folding shovel to dig yourself out of trouble with a fractured hip at the side of the road? Look, the article was not about phone-toting idiots scaling Ben Nevis in T-shirts and flip flops, it was about communicating your location when, regardless of being fully equipped and not even being lost you need the emergency services. At that point you rely on your mobile phone, not crawling to the nearest mountain hut or bothy using your orienteering skills, compass and trusty OS map. It does not have to be one or the other, and in this case relying on a mobile phone was about the only possible thing. Relying on anything else would be futile.

hirsute wrote:

Plenty of other native apps that are not proprietary. You can send an SMS of your Google maps location and it will open up in maps the other end. And if you are going out to remote areas you need a proper map, compass and GPS with decent battery life. Don't rely on a phone battery.

As you are likely to have your phone with you, and an app weighs nothing, I would say why not?

I agree wholeheartedly that you should always carry map, compass and the ability to use them, but taking triangulated back bearings was not really an option for this rider, broken femur and all.

It was the other 2 riders who did the call.

The what word thing is marketed on the basis that other things don't work very well whereas they do and have moved on.

hirsute wrote:

It was the other 2 riders who did the call.

The what word thing is marketed on the basis that other things don't work very well whereas they do and have moved on.

Quite, using that app, and the rider has now said that he has it on his phone.

Obvs, whether to have an app on your phone is a personal choice. I have it, but as you point out it's not a substitute for being able to map read. I see it as more of a spare string to the bow. The strong chances are that I will never need to use it

I'm skeptical of W3W https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2019/03/why-bother-with-what-three-words/