Mongolia’s national postal service, Mongol Post, has adopted a new addressing platform for deliveries to customers across the country that will become integral to its services and a part of the infrastructure that will help drive the country’s economic development.
The what3words addressing system is an easy-to-use, accurate address for every 3m x 3m (10ft x 10ft) square in the world and will enable Mongol Post to provide a better postal service across the entire country, which measures nearly the size of the European Union.
Owing to the country’s vast, sparsely populated landscape, many citizens currently have to collect mail from post office boxes dozens of miles from their homes. Other have no access to postal services or deliveries.
When deliveries are made, descriptive directions such as “opposite the gas station, near the internet cafe” and landmarks are often the only way to specify a location. Customers regularly provide a mobile phone number on the envelope so that the driver can call for directions. Failed deliveries are commonplace, inconveniencing citizens, holding back the operations of businesses and government, and raising costs.
Mongol Post is the country’s largest postal service provider, with 900 employees serving more than three million citizens, 30% of whom are nomadic, roaming an area of more than 1.5 million square kilometers (580,000 square miles). As a rapidly emerging market, Mongolia needs a functioning address system to sustain its economic development and attract investment. The what3words location reference system is based on a global grid of 57 trillion 3m x 3m squares that have each been pre-assigned a fixed and unique three-word address. The system is available as a mobile app or API integration and works both online and offline. It makes it easy to discover an address, communicate it and deliver to it.
Mongol Post customers will be able to discover any three-word address using the free app, and simply write it on an envelope or enter it on the checkout page of a shopping website. Every citizen now has an address, whether they live in rural areas, the Ger districts (informal settlements in the capital) or the center of Ulaanbaatar. what3words will be integrated across Mongol Post’s internal systems and postal workers will use the three-word address to navigate direct to the correct square, where they will find the customer’s front door.
“We are on a mission to change the way people communicate location, because we want to make the world a more efficient, less frustrating and safer place,” said Chris Sheldrick, CEO and co-founder of what3words. “Using what3words across the country will help Mongolia leapfrog many nations that still rely on outdated and poorly performing addressing systems.”
Batsaikhan Tsedendamba, CEO of Mongol Post, commented, “I have been working at Mongol Post for 10 years now, during which time we have been presented with numerous local and international addressing systems and technologies. Of them all, I believe what3words is the most user-friendly and optimal technology. We are glad to be introducing this innovation, particularly as we see increasing numbers of postal consumers. We are confident that our cooperation will be successful.”
May 25, 2016