What3words: Offering Efficient Deliveries for Fleets

What3words is an increasingly popular tool for businesses for efficient logistics or to improve the fuel usage of their drivers further. It enables businesses to communicate precise locations easily and accurately, making logistics, deliveries, emergency services, and many other fleet management areas ideal. What3words is one of several ways businesses can improve efficiency, reduce costs, and enhance customer experiences. Read on to discover why it is being adopted by so many businesses, its benefits, and how it helps improve fleet fuel optimisation.

smartphone location

What is what3words?

What3words is a geocoding system that divides the world into a grid of three-meter squares and assigns a unique three-word address to each square. It achieves this with a mathematical algorithm that converts real geographical coordinates relevant to current maps and assigns them a unique combination of three words, making this location unique. The system then displays the exact location on a map, allowing you to navigate or communicate the location to others.

For example, this three-word address – ///occurs.guides.labs will bring you to our facility in the North West of England.

People use what3words either through the website or, more efficiently, through a free-to-download mobile app on a tablet or phone connected to a mobile network. Your location or destination is entered to present one of these three-meter squares and the associated three-word combinations. This can be used in reverse also. By inputting the three words shared with you, the app will present the real-world location they are assigned to.

van and map graphic

How Is what3words Used By Businesses?

What3words is being adopted in various industries, from logistics and deliveries to emergency services and outdoor recreation. Providing a simple and accurate way to communicate location, what3words can help businesses and individuals save time, reduce costs, and enhance safety.

This reliable navigation has many efficient benefits for businesses, most notably in improving the relationship between fuel management in fleet management. Having precise directions to your desired location through a reliable navigation system will save you significant fuel on the journey.

Once the three words have revealed the destination of your driver, you can instantly open this location in one of several popular navigation apps such as:

  • Citymapper
  • Google Maps
  • Bing Maps
  • Waze

This variability makes finding specific locations incredibly easy, as the location data will be instantly transferred to the driver’s navigation device.

Transportation and Delivery Fleets

For example, suppose a delivery driver is trying to find a specific address in a large industrial complex or a rural area. In that case, they may spend a lot of time trying to locate the exact location. This can waste fuel and increase delivery times.

However, by using what3words to navigate directly to the precise location, delivery drivers can reduce the time and distance travelled, leading to a more efficient and sustainable delivery process. Additionally, what3words can help reduce the number of late deliveries due to delayed, incorrect or incomplete addresses, leading to wasted fuel and increased emissions. By improving the accuracy and efficiency of deliveries, what3words can help businesses reduce their carbon footprint and contribute to a more sustainable future.

It will also help you optimise your route to benefit the environment. Increased sustainability is a rising agenda for most commercial fleets as they attempt to reduce their operation’s carbon emissions.

lorry driving at sunset

Emergency Service Fleets

What3words can be particularly useful for emergency services as it provides a quick and accurate way to communicate precise locations, especially in areas without exact addresses or landmarks. By using what3words, emergency services can quickly identify the location of an incident or a person needing assistance, even if they don’t know the exact address or cannot provide clear directions.

For example, if someone is lost in a remote area or has been injured while hiking, they can use the what3words app to provide their three-word address to emergency services. This allows rescue teams to locate them, reducing response times and potentially saving lives quickly.

What3words has already been adopted by many emergency services worldwide, including police, fire, and ambulance services, and has proven to be an effective tool for improving response times and saving lives.

fire trucks

Combine With Telematics for Improved Fuel Efficiency

What3words helps managers focus on fleet optimisation to save fuel by improving the efficiency of delivery routes and reducing the distance travelled by delivery vehicles. However, this is further improved when combined with already popular telematics systems.

Fleet managers use telematics with what3words to track the exact location of their vehicles in real-time and give drivers precise directions to their next delivery location by integrating what3words with telematics systems. This can help reduce delivery times, make the process more efficient, and make customers happier.

By providing drivers with accurate location information, what3words can also assist in reducing the number of missed or incorrect deliveries, which can result in lower delivery costs and increased customer satisfaction.

Fleet managers can optimise their delivery routes, reduce fuel consumption, and minimise vehicle wear and tear by combining what3words with telematics systems. A more sustainable fleet operation and lower operating costs may result from this.

Providing accurate and precise location information, what3words enables businesses to optimise their delivery routes and avoid unnecessary detours and backtracking. This can help reduce the distance delivered by vehicle travel, reducing fuel consumption and emissions.

Complete Fuel Management with Fueltek

Fueltek has been helping businesses across the UK improve their fuel efficiency by providing complete fuel management systems. No matter how efficiently you use an app like what3words, your fuel usage efficiency will struggle if your drivers visit public forecourts to refuel around jobs. With our effective solutions, you can invest in your own private fuel station at your facility consisting of:

With this investment, developing tools such as what3words enable fleet managers to streamline the use of their valuable fuel, reducing expenses and ensuring that every drop is used efficiently for their business. Contact us to find out more about how we can improve your fleet expenses.