If you have ever driven around Heathrow Airport in London, you may have noticed that the road names have an interesting pattern.

Roads in the central area – such as Croydon Road, Cambourne Crescent all begin with ‘C’; roads near Terminal 5 – such as Walrus Road, Wayfarer Road all begin with ‘W’; roads near Terminal 4 – Stratford Road, Salisbury Road all begin with ‘S’, while roads to the north of the terminals all begin with ‘N’ and roads to the East all begin with ‘E’.

An obvious pattern when you see it – the reason being that Heathrow has five Rendezvous Points – RVPs – central, east, west, north, and south. If a plane were to come down on Wayfarer Road, the emergency services would immediately be sent to RVP West. You can see the importance of the RVP system in the following fascinating ATC video from the British Airways crash on runway 27L – and the air traffic controller declaring ‘the Rendezvous point is SOUTH’ just after the 1 minute mark.

You may have seen the green RVP (N/E/S/W/C) signs near UK airports. And that’s what they are for.