Abhilash Murthy is the creator of Bus Uncle, a Facebook Messenger chatbot that tells users how soon before a bus arrives at any given bus stop.

It is one of the first chatbots to make a splash with a significant user base in Singapore.

In a Medium post on Feb. 16, Abhilash explained what prompted him in the first place to create Bus Uncle and what is it that makes the chatbot so essential for users who have tried it.

The idea is basically for the chatbot to solve one very simple problem: Telling commuters like it is without having to work hard for the answer.

Basically, the app is doing very well owing to the fact it does all the heavy-lifting to sift out the correct answer.

Because this is how information is traditionally served when bus timings are concerned:

Then with the advent of apps, they got turned to this:

And finally, in this chatbot form:

The key insight of his article is that the chatbot was created to solve just one problem, and problem only.

And with the avalanche of real-time data that is ripe for the picking, humans, in general, can start to avoid getting hit by a tonne of information every passing second.

What the chatbot does is take that spread of information and picking the needle out from the haystack.

Added to that the fact that Bus Uncle also specialises in typical nonchalant, middle-aged man replies to inform commuters the arrival waiting times for public buses, it is one of the rarer chatbots that have personality.

You can read the full article here.

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