‘Keep going… a bit further... left... left again... stop stop stop! Back up a little bit…’

If this sounds familiar, you may have been on a cab journey recently too. Because, no matter how far e-hailing tech has come, it’s still not quite at the top of its game.

When we enter a street address into an e-hailing app, the corresponding pin doesn’t point to a specific building entrance. Instead, it drops somewhere in the middle of the building. This lack of accuracy delays drop-offs, frustrates drivers and means we need to supply extra directions to get where we want to go.

To improve this part of the e-hailing experience, Cabify, the leading e-hailing company in Spain, Latin America and Portugal, has adopted what3words. Its customers can now easily share a precise drop-off location with their drivers by entering a 3 word address into the app.

If 3 word addresses are new to you, here’s how they work:

what3words has divided the world into 3m x 3m squares and given each square a unique 3 word address. It means that now anyone can refer to any precise location using just three words – be that a drop-off point, a specific building entrance, or a park gate. For example ///spoonfuls.limos.founder or ///bajón.utilizan.manitas is the best place to park when you’re visiting the hidden ‘Rock Beach’ Platja Sa Calobra in Mallorca. 

By entering 3 word addresses for their drop-off locations, Cabify customers can have smoother, faster and safer journeys. They don’t need to spend time directing drivers to their exact destination, and when dropped off in an unfamiliar area at night, they won’t have to wander around in the dark searching for the right building entrance.

At the same time, drivers are saved the hassle of asking for extra directions to navigate to the right location. They also no longer need to spend time rerouting when they mistakenly drive past a destination. Faster drop-offs may give drivers extra time to complete new journeys, hopefully leading to higher earnings too.

Future-proofing mobility

While e-hailing apps like Cabify are using what3words to improve customer experience and driver efficiency, businesses in the wider mobility space are adopting the technology to ensure their future relevance.

By 2030, one in four cars will be self-driving, according to recent estimates. To plan routes, driverless vehicles need high levels of accuracy. At the same time, voice tech is becoming more and more popular, and will most likely be the way we command mobility systems of the future. 90% of new cars will have some type of speech recognition capability by 2022.

The problem is, over two thirds of drivers are misunderstood by their sat navs when they speak a traditional addresses or a postcode, and for several reasons.

Firstly, similar-sounding street names and cities are hard for voice systems to tell apart. One unfortunate American tourist learnt this the hard way, ending up at Laurgavegur, the other side of Iceland from his intended destination, Laugavegur. Secondly, street addresses also use thousands of non-dictionary words, which can be hard to pronounce correctly and undo the intended ease of voice navigation. For example, people often mispronounce Worcester, Massachusetts. Like the city in England, the correct pronunciation is ‘wuss-ter’, not ‘wor-ches-ter’ or ‘wor-sess-ter’. There are thousands more examples around the world.

On top of all this, street names aren’t unique. There are over 271 1st streets in California, and over 630 Juarez streets in Mexico City.

Check out what happens when I ask Google to take me to ‘240 First Street’ in California:

what3words is the missing puzzle piece in each of these scenarios. Every 3 word address is completely unique. In addition, similar-sounding 3 word addresses are spaced as far apart as possible to avoid confusion. what3words voice input also features error prevention tech to improve accuracy and identify and correct input mistakes.

As what3words removes the everyday frustrations that come with conventional addresses and navigation systems, it’s attracting attention from companies all over the world. This year, Mercedes-Benz became the first automotive manufacturer to integrate what3words voice search into its new cars. Now drivers can simply say a 3 word address to navigate to anywhere in the world. Driverless shuttles like IBM’s #AccessibleOlli have also integrated what3words voice search to help people specify the exact drop-off points for accessible entrances.

In the past year, I’ve had the pleasure of seeing a growing number of people, businesses, governments and NGOs embrace 3 word addresses. As I open our new office in the Bay Area, I look forward to bringing what3words to the US, and another step closer to becoming a global standard for navigation.

Don’t forget to book your next taxi with just 3 words! You can find your 3 word address here or via the free what3words app on iOS or Android.