An Alternative to Arithmetic Coding with Local Decodability (2010) [pdf] http://people.csail.mit.edu/mip/papers/trits/paper.pdf
Changing base without losing space (2010) [pdf] https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1806771 (same paper as above, different title)
"The ternary numeral system (also called base 3) has three as its base...a ternary digit (trit) is analogous to a bit. One trit is equivalent to log2 3 (about 1.58496) bits of information" [1].
NB: Base 3 is the integer base with the lowest average radix economy; however, base e has the lowest average radix economy overall [2].
[1] Ternary numeral system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ternary_numeral_system
[2] Radix economy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radix_economy
[3] Three-valued logic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-valued_logic