[OSGeo-Discuss] Munich Orientation Convention, Mapcodes, and All the Rest

Steve Swazee sdswazee at sharedgeo.org
Thu Jul 30 07:52:20 PDT 2015 

Jonathan,

 

Good afternoon.  Per your comments below, I’ll try to keep this simple.

 

As a former military and airline pilot I am acutely aware that there is not
one panacea coordinate system.  Latitude/longitude is appropriate for
worldwide aviation and sea going navigation.  In a past life, I was trained
in UTM for surveying  – and so on.  However, the most fundamental role any
government can have is the protection of its citizens.  On an international
basis, that mission falls to the armed forces.  On a local basis, that
mission falls to the first response community.  Ongoing efforts in the
United States which are driving the legislative and policy efforts to
incorporate use of USNG are coming primarily from the first response
community because 35% of their calls go to a location without a street
address.  It is not only a significant problem, it is a HUGE problem that is
becoming compounded by the rate at which individuals are unplugging their
hard wired land lines in lieu of cells phones only.  Thus, there is a need
for a geolocation STANDARD for first response.  And if you know anything at
all about this community – you would know everything is about standards.  It
does no good to call a fire crew from the next city over if their hose
couplings won’t work on your town’s fire hydrants.  

 

So a question.  If not USNG as the “language of location” for first
response, then what?  The reason adoption is taking off in the US is because
everyone that has honestly considered that question comes back to the same
conclusion  - nothing beats the USNG/MGRS coordinate system in the realm of
first response.  A system which had an original design criteria of an 8th
grader must be able to learn it 15 minutes, has just as much utility in the
first response community as it does in the last response military community.
And by extension, for the first response community to be able to use it
effectively, the public must also know how to use it.  Consequently, there
must be a standard for this purpose and only ONE standard, otherwise you
don’t have a standard.  Thus, the concern about promotion of other
coordinate systems that are inferior on many levels.  

 

Now that I have your attention, I believe you and the rest of the OSGeo
community would be well served by spending some time truly learning about
this issue.  In so doing, I’m sure the open minds among you will come to the
conclusion that USNG/MGRS is the answer to the issue I am addressing.  OSGeo
could do the world a heap of good in doing so.

 

Cheers,

Steve

 

 

From: Jonathan Moules [mailto:J.Moules at hrwallingford.com] 
Sent: Thursday, July 30, 2015 7:39 AM
To: 'sdswazee at sharedgeo.org' <sdswazee at sharedgeo.org>;
'discuss at lists.osgeo.org' <discuss at lists.osgeo.org>
Subject: RE: [OSGeo-Discuss] Munich Orientation Convention, Mapcodes, and
All the Rest

 

Hi Steve,

 

*  A little research on the topic of USNG/MGRS and how it works would be of
benefit to those who wish to slam a worldwide referencing system created
after WWII when a NATO armed forces business review determined the Allies
got too many people killed trying to use latitude/longitude when street
addresses don’t work.  The answer isn’t hypothetical, it’s written in blood.


I’ve not seen anyone “slam” the MRGS. I did point out myself that it serves
a slightly different, albeit somewhat overlapping purpose to those other
systems that have been highlighted earlier. It’s clearly great for the
military and I have little doubt it’d be similarly useful for
first-responders. That said, that doesn’t mean it’s a perfect fit for the
civil world where military or even first-responder discipline is in short
supply.

 

*  (two less than a phone number, and who can’t remember that?)

Lots-of-people can’t remember them
(http://www.engadget.com/2005/03/12/cant-remember-phone-numbers-youre-not-al
one/ - or
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/7885227/Most-people-cannot-rememb
er-partners-mobile-phone-number.html)

 

“An online test to assess the [UK’s] ability to recall sequences of numbers
found nine in 10 cannot remember a mobile phone number after an interlude of
just five seconds”

 

I’m not sure how your examples show MGRS as superior. In the first case the
problems appear to have been institutional, and in the second it’s a lack of
navigation/map-reading skills on the part of both the teacher and the first
wave of responders. In neither case would MGRS or any other system been
helpful. If you don’t know where you are, you can’t communicate, and if the
people you’re communicating with aren’t listening, there’s little benefit to
communicating in the first place.

 

I don’t know what the solution is, but it doesn’t seem like MGRS would be
the panacea you put forth, just like I suspect there are problems with the
other systems. But I do agree with you and others that it’s an important
subject.

 

Kind regards,

Jonathan 

 

From: discuss-bounces at lists.osgeo.org
<mailto:discuss-bounces at lists.osgeo.org>
[mailto:discuss-bounces at lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of Steve Swazee
Sent: Wednesday, July 29, 2015 3:26 PM
To: discuss at lists.osgeo.org <mailto:discuss at lists.osgeo.org> 
Subject: [OSGeo-Discuss] Munich Orientation Convention, Mapcodes, and All
the Rest

 

Dr. Reed, et al.,

“Somehow I do not see a dispatcher saying to a responding officer, "Shots
fired at 103132" :-)”  Carl, you are wrong.  

 

On June 30, 2013, 19 wildland firefighters lost their lives when a wall of
fast moving flame over took their position at the Yarnell Hill fire in
Arizona.  Reports from that incident attempt to gloss over a body of
evidence pointing to geospatial ineptness at all levels with terms like “fog
of war” and “communication clutter”.  It is the only way those at the top of
the food chain can defend themselves from the reality that as those
firefighters climbed into their last defense fire shelters known as “shake
and bake bags”, those 19 souls were unable to quickly and effectively
communicate their location and request help.  A truly unfortunate
circumstance given there was a large airborne tanker full of retardant
circling directly overhead their position.  This incident has sparked an
ongoing debate in the wildland fire community - that like the armed forces
before it – the nation’s wildland fire community needs to get onboard with
use of the USNG/MGRS.  Try this:  Mayday, Mayday, Mayday – 8975 4563.  For
those who know how the grid works, those 8 digits (two less than a phone
number, and who can’t remember that?) just passed location for a retardant
drop with a location accuracy of 33’. 

 

On May 22, 2013, grade school students from a Minneapolis suburb were on a
fossil hunting field trip at the Lilydale Regional Park which sits along the
Mississippi River flats in St. Paul, MN.  A landslide there buried two
children and a desperate call for help was made to the 911 center.  Street
address for a large rambling park that stretches for miles – one.  Ability
of a panicked teacher unfamiliar with the area to describe location in the
park so someone could understand – zero.  Smartphone triangulation – crap.
But it doesn’t stop there.  Despite the park being in the middle of dense
urban area, it took responders more than 50 minutes to locate the incident
site, and even after the first wave of responders found the location, those
responders were unable to provide information about their location for
additional assistance.   Outcome?  Two dead children.  Beyond that loss of
life, the incident has cost the City of St. Paul something north of $1.5
million.  The result has been a heap of soul searching about how to
communicate location when a street address won’t work.  Carl, from being
here for the TC GECCo, you already know what the answer is.  In the City of
St. Paul, Minnesota, responders are now expected to know what “Shots fired
at 103132” means.  Too bad it took the death of these two children in 2013
to force adoption of a plan laid out in 2011.

 

If you want more examples, I have them – responders in Florida are now using
6 digit grid coordinates (100 meter accuracy) to communicate the coordinates
of helicopter landing zones – and so on.

 

The naïve and uniformed comments I have been reading on this board in an
effort to promote a new best thing for communicating location, are troubling
in the extreme.  I believe part of the charter of OSGeo is service to the
common good.  Yet, the reality of these plans and promotions fly in the face
of the Harry S. Truman quote: “It is amazing what you can accomplish if you
do not care who gets the credit.”  In an effort to be “the hero” who solves
the street address problem – the hawking of these half-baked plans here and
elsewhere (see the recent New Yorker magazine Map Codes article:
http://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/should-mapcodes-replace-gps?mbid=soci
al_facebook) is creating geospatial confusion at the cost of lives.

 

A little research on the topic of USNG/MGRS and how it works would be of
benefit to those who wish to slam a worldwide referencing system created
after WWII when a NATO armed forces business review determined the Allies
got too many people killed trying to use latitude/longitude when street
addresses don’t work.  The answer isn’t hypothetical, it’s written in blood.


 

I return to my original point in response to the Munich Orientation
Convention posting. “If OSGeo wanted to do something to truly help the world
gain better situational awareness, it would stop for a moment and reflect on
the realities of these "new" best ideas for relating location - the same way
it has inserted itself into the open LiDAR discussion - and begin working to
understand and promote the Military Gird Reference System (MGRS). “  It DOES
MATTER what you build into your Open Source Software for location
referencing – in a big way.

 

Regards,

Steve

 

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