The Gwinnett County Emergency Call Center has integrated a new geo-location application that will help locate 911 callers when they are not near a developed area or when they are lost.
Gwinnett County Police Cpl. Ryan Winderweedle said "What 3 Words," will allow for faster response times to those in need of emergency services.
What 3 Words is an app and website that has divided the world into three-meter squares. The application then provides a unique combination of three words to identify which square the user is in.
"Each square is assigned a unique three words that identify that three-meter by three-meter location, as opposed to an address on a building that could be a 10,000 square foot warehouse, or a park with a couple of hundred acres in it," Winderweddle said. "Within that park, there is going to be a bunch of What 3 Words locations. That could be on a trail, could be in the woods, could be near a lake somewhere."
The app can be downloaded for free on any smart device, including Android and Apple. The software can also be used without downloading the application by visiting what3words.com.
When placing a call to Gwinnett County E911, the caller can open the application or visit the What 3 Words website. The software will then provide the user with three words that match up with their location. The caller can then provide those words to 911 to help responders quickly determine their location.
"Officers responding to calls frequently pull into a shopping center, and you don't know if they're on one end of the shopping center or 200 yards away at the other end," Winderweedle said. "Usually when officers are pulling into commercial businesses and parking lots, they're busy. There's a lot of cars, there's a lot of people walking around, and if somebody's not waving their hand at you, you don't know who exactly you're looking for and who placed the call to 911."
Winderweedle said the E911 center can use cell phone tower triangulation to find a caller's location, but it's not as accurate as the small three-meter square that is provided by What 3 Words.
The app does have limitations based on regional dialect, accent or pronunciation of the words provided. The app is also meant to be a supplemental tool, and not a replacement for other location means currently used.
"The Gwinnett Emergency Call Center is excited about this new tool in hopes that it will continue to improve the services proved to the citizens of Gwinnett," a press release from the Gwinnett County Police Department reads.
