The problem
Bad addresses cost India an estimated $10–14 billion a year, about 0.5% of GDP. The figure comes from a study first published on MIT's Emerging Worlds blog.
Around 80% of Indian addresses are written relative to a landmark, the study found, and the landmark can be anywhere from 50 to 1,500 metres from the door. A driver ends up phoning the customer or asking people on the street. The last mile comes to roughly 30% of delivery cost in India, against 10–12% in countries with structured addresses.
Digital address codes already exist, but few people know their own. Until people routinely share a precise location for their home, drivers will keep calling.
- Who has this problem
- Delivery workers, the businesses that employ them, and anyone whose home is hard to describe.
- Languages needed
- Hindi and regional languages
Where the demand comes from
What people do today
- The workaround
- The driver phones the customer for directions, or asks people on the street.
- Why that fails
- It costs time on every delivery, fails when the customer does not pick up, and does not work across languages.
How others solved it3
Products and services that work on a similar problem, in India and elsewhere.
- MapplsIndia
Gives any place a short digital address code that points to the exact doorstep.
- what3wordsUK
Names every 3-metre square on Earth with three words.
- Google Plus CodesGlobal
Short codes derived from latitude and longitude, usable in Google Maps.
Read and watch2
Where the facts on this page come from.