We all know of the classic bus arrival apps, now these 2 Final Year NTU students take it to a whole new level on Telegram!
UPDATE [17/1/2017]: NTU Bus Arrival is just launched on Facebook Messenger today!
As typical kiasu Singaporeans, information on bus arrival timings is crucial to us. We need to know the exact number of minutes until the next bus – just because it gives us a sense of security and control. More practical reasons include informing your decision on whether you need to start sprinting to the bus stop to avoid missing that 8.30am lecture in the morning.
We had Iris and SG Buses. But a local resident decided that those apps did not suffice, and the endearing Bus Uncle was born.
In NTU, students usually check their buses’ arrivals through a website or the app, NTU GO!, which give users a map showing the locations of various campus shuttle buses. But most students did not find it sufficient.
Two undergraduates of the school thus decided to create a chatbot specially for NTU students, but with an added convenience specific to most local University students – this chatbot lived in Telegram.
Ah, Telegram. The land of stickers, deletable messages, Werewolf, and now, a bus arrival chatbot. (For those of you who are not in the loop, Telegram is a power packed Whatsapp like clone with a variety of enhanced interactivity features and it’s widely popular among the millennials)
How it works
Using it is simple – just search NTU_BusArrivalBot on Telegram (or click here), and tap on ‘start’. The bot will prompt you to type in the name of the bus stop you’re at, and will then give you a selection of the various buses that stop there. After choosing an option, the bot will not only tell the arrival timing of the coming bus, but the next few buses as well.
When arrival timings cannot be retrieved, the bot will respond with a map of the buses’ locations instead, similar to what NTU GO! provides. However, this map includes numbers indicating the speed of buses as well, which are particularly useful in telling users whether or not the bus shown on the map has terminated.
Of course, as with any other chatbot, I was mindlessly provoked to respond as I would with an actual person – with some politeness, and gratitude.
To my dismay, it wasn’t that able to banter with me just yet. The bot responded sheepishly and modestly, punctuating its sentences with emoticons. Much like how an average millennial would speak.
The Humans Behind The Bot
Freshly launched on Sunday by co-developers Yap Deep and Marcus Tee, this bot has already garnered over 600 unique users and more than 3500 queries by the next day. Humbly referring to themselves as nothing more than amateur coders, the two seek to create a more mobile-friendly platform for students to check bus arrival timings on.
However, it is still in its development stages. Despite being Year 4 students themselves, Deep and Marcus will continue working on it – relying mostly on the Internet and trial and error – while completing their Final-Year Projects.
Considering that NTU Bus Arrival is still a relatively new chatbot, it still has a long way to go before it reaches the stability and reliability of Siri and Alexa, two of the virtual assistants that had heavily inspired Deep and Marcus. However, a first step would be integrating it across various platforms, and indeed, you can look forward to it becoming available on Facebook Messenger very soon.
Of course, the bot was immediately put to use in the vibrant social life I had, which required me to take buses out and around school plenty. And no, I assure you that my commute wasn’t just to North Spine to get McDonalds. And I did not take-away a meal back to my room to eat it either. Really.
Needless to say, I flew.
With so much potential in the expansion of its features, expect NTU Bus Arrival to be updated substantially in the months to come. Keep up with the development of this bot and get regular updates from the developers, and like their Facebook page here.