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2 students create chatbot service to keep track of bus arrival times tal of 600 users in the first month of its launch. Today, it receives an average of 2,500 queries every day. In fact, the service was so popular that it crashed on its third day because of a surge in queries, said Tee. The team had initially subscribed to a free service that had a limit of 10,000 queries to the chatbot per month.
“We wanted to make it fun and also showcase what a chatbot can do, that it can analyse emotions and identify objects." Yap Deep, 23 NTU Bus Arrival chatbot co-founder
NTU undergraduates Marcus Tee and Yap Deep came up with an interactive solution to the lack of reliable information source on bus arrival times.
First-of-its-kind chatbot on campus allows students to check bus arrival times on Telegram and Facebook Messenger Lim Woei Lin and Wong Jing Hui A CHATBOT that dishes out bus arrival times on campus has been making waves among NTU students ever since it was launched in January. Created by two University undergraduates, the NTU Bus Arrival chatbot allows students to check the arrival times of NTU shuttle buses, as well as SBS bus services
179 and 199. It is currently available on social media messaging services Telegram and Facebook Messenger. The chatbot is the brainchild of two final-year students — Yap Deep, 23, from the School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, and Marcus Tee, 23, from the School of Physical and Mathematical Sciences. Simple solution The lack of a reliable and accurate campus bus app spurred the duo to come up with their own simple and interactive solution. “We find the current NTU bus arrival website not mobile-friendly. Most NTU bus arrival apps also lack familiarity and details, often just showing a map,” Yap said.
The pair then decided to create a chatbot, as it is “more interactive” than a mobile app. Previously, students could check arrival times on the official NTU bus arrival website (https:// baseride.com/maps/public/ntu/) or through mobile apps such as NTU Bus and NTU Go!, which provide the location of shuttle buses around campus. The NTU Arrival Chatbot is similar to the popular bus arrival timing chatbot Bus Uncle, which provides commuters with bus arrival times islandwide. Like the Bus Uncle Chatbot, the NTU Bus Arrival Chatbot responds to users in a humorous and friendly manner, often using Singlish. The chatbot is also able to detect the tones of replies received and re-
PHOTO: VALERIE LAY
spond with emotions. For instance, it might reply with “Please don’t scold me, I’m just a chatbot” to an angry or dissatisfied message. Special features were also added to the chatbot for different occasions, such as sending users virtual red packets for Chinese New Year and asking for Valentine’s Day presents from users. “We wanted to make it fun and also showcase what a chatbot can do, that it can analyse emotions and identify objects. We wanted to make it more humanlike,” said Yap. Surging popularity Response towards the chatbot has exceeded expectations so far, according to the duo. The chatbot saw an estimated to-
To handle the growing number of daily queries, the chatbot now uses a premium service that costs US$30 (S$42) every month. The service is sponsored by the Microsoft Student Partners Program, a global education programme by Microsoft to help students pursuing technologyrelated disciplines. The duo initially test-ran the chatbot with some of their friends. But equipped with only basic programming knowledge, the duo faced several challenges in improving the chatbot. “(Locations within) NTU have too many acronyms and names. Lee Wee Nam Library can also be called Lee Wee Nam or LWN by students,” said Tee. “We had to train the service to understand the messages that students sent.” Potential collaborations Once they added a customised database of words, the chatbot was able to recognise incomplete sentences and even acronyms for locations used by students. Its popularity has since attracted the attention of Overdrive, a technology company that provides tracking services for the official NTU bus arrival website. The company has proposed possible collaborations with the duo to further improve services. Tee and Yap have also arranged to meet with the NTU Students’ Union to discuss how to sustain the chatbot, as they are in their final semester. They are also considering plans to engage a third par-