Skip to main content

Tata and What3words simplify last-mile in India

Automobile manufacturer Tata Motors has joined forces with location technology provider What3words to help simplify last-mile navigation in India.
October 11, 2019 Read time: 1 min


Mayank Pareek, president, passenger vehicle business unit at Tata Motors, says: “Our customers will now be able to navigate to accurate three-word addresses represented by What3words; offering a clear solution to a very visible problem related to the non-standard traditional address system.”

The location technology is expected to help solve the issue of regional address formats across India which includes unnamed streets and localities coupled with buildings with no numbers.

According to Tata, the system has divided the world into 3mx3m squares and has assigned each square an identifier made of three random words. For example, a prominent landmark such as the Gateway of India located in Mumbai can be found at ///holiday.surpises.design, the company adds.

What3words is available in 36 languages, including Hindi, Bengali, Tamil, Telugu and Marathi. Users can download the solution on iOS and Android platforms.

Related Content

  • Value of time – the key decider
    March 4, 2014
    The ‘value of time’ concept can be a vital decider in prioritising transport projects, as Lorenzo Casullo and Serbjeet Kohli of Steer Davies Gleave explain. How much do travellers value their time and how much would they be willing to pay for a better and faster transport option? For many years Steer Davies Gleave (SDG) has been collecting this type of information from thousands of people across the world as it researches travellers’ behaviour. And given the importance of this parameter for transport mo
  • Bringing AI into ITS: Artificial realities
    May 21, 2025
    AI can have a positive transformative effect on transportation safety and efficiency – but if you want creativity you still need a person, says Huawei
  • Investment and innovation the future of ITS
    January 31, 2012
    Cisco's Paul Brubaker, former administrator of the US Department of Transportation's (USDOT's) Research and Innovative Technology Administration (RITA), takes a look at how the ITS sector is starting to attract the attention of major corporations and what this will mean for intelligent transportation in the coming years
  • Bluetooth and Wi-Fi offer new options for travel time measurements
    November 20, 2013
    New trials show Bluetooth and Wi-Fi signals can be reliably used for measuring travel times and at a lower cost than an ANPR system, but which is the better proposition depends on many factors. Measuring travel times has traditionally relied automatic number plate (or licence plate) recognition (ANPR/ALPR) cameras capturing the progress of vehicles travelling along a pre-defined route. Such systems also have the benefit of being able to count passing traffic and have become a vital tool in dealing with c