Riders Assist Bot a.k.a. RABS, is a Telegram based bot that provides rrange of functions
to riders in Singapore to improve and prepare their rides. It was build on the needs of
a rider Glenn Ng , and slowly grown into a full suite of
features that riders and contributed.
Origin and History
RABS was developed over a procrastination run on the bench outside his examhall. It started
in 2019 where Glenn, was hugely annoyed with facign rain on his ride to and fro school.
After which, he started a telegram bot called SG Rain Areas. It was a very bare
telegram bot that only provided rain alerts and had interval functions. Not only does it
crashes frequently, it wasn't properly refactored for mass uses.
It was after stablizing the telegram bot where the bot started to take attention of riders
around Singapore. Features were requested, and slowly more and more riders are now using the
bot.
RABS has now evolved not just as a Rain Checker before every ride, but also plays an
important riding prep for many riders in Singapore. This includes features like Customs
Checkpoint Traffic status to Rain warnings during the heavy downpours.
What functions are there?
Functions
Rain Checks - Provides you with a range of Rain status and Animated checks.
Meet Rides Manager - Provides you with a simple and easy tool to manage group
rides.
Border Checkpoints Traffic Checks - Provides you with Traffic Updates on the
Checkpoint Jams.
Lottery (Singapore only) - Provides you with the latest Lottery results.
COE Bidding and Prices - Provides a current bidding prices or latest prices.
Craft Deals - Provides you with the crafted deal that RABS team put together.
Support Riders, Support RABS
See a function that's useful for you?
How does it work?
Functions in telegram are mostly worked through a / prefix before the function
name.
Note
Call it like this: /raincheck, /meetride,
/checkjb
Rain Checks
Rain checks functions is mainly to provide you with the ongoing rain status. It will
allow you to make decision as to how the rain is moving to avoid or consider delaying
your ride.
/raincheck
/raincheck> will fetch you the current and on-going rain clouds in Singapore.
Rain radars are fetched from Meteorological Service Singapore (MSS).
/rainpattern
/rainpattern will fetch you an animated historical view of the rain clouds over
a span of an hour. This will provide you with ample information on where the rain clouds are
moving before you take your ride out.
/raincheck240
/raincheck240 is similar to the /raincheck. However, is catered for
our border crossing riders looking to cross over to Malaysia. It provides a wider view of
over 240km radius around Singapore.
/rainpattern240
/rainpattern240 is similar to the /rainpattern. However, is catered
for our border crossing riders looking to cross over to Malaysia. It provides a wider view
of over 240km radius around Singapore.
/raincheckmy
/raincheckmy is similar to the /raincheck. However, is catered
for our riders across the border. It provides a wide view
of the Malaysia Peninsular.
Meet Rides
/meetride is a function catered to group chats, it helps group to organize
rides by providing a list of attendees attending the meetride and also sync up the
details of the events to all riders.
Here is how you read the meetrides details:
Venue
This is the point where all attendees will meet.
This is also a clickable link that links to Google Maps to make sure the
location is the same for all riders
Date and time
Date and time is made with Free Text, so be sure to use a format your group
is familiar with
Itinerary
Itinerary is where you can describe your meetride to the other riders. Some
uses this space as a way to chart their stops, some uses it to describe what
you'll be doing. Go crazy.
Join & Leave button
This is where riders in the group can RSVP themselve to the event.
This is important especially for any overseas rides. It acts as a historical
backup to who were in the event, or if there's a missing rider that did not
reach your rally spot.
Though this can incite many riders to be curiously click, so do educate them
on the functionality of the buttons.
Creating meet rides
Creating a meet ride is easy. The template is as follows:/meetrideVENUE, DATE, TIME, Itinerary/Description
Values and Types:
Value Name
Value Type
Value Description
VENUE
STRING/TEXT
This is a Google searchable link. Hence, avoid using generic names like KFC
(there are alot of KFCs in Malaysia and Singapore). Preferably, Kallang
Stadium KFC.
DATE
STRING/TEXT
This can be in different formats to cater to your group's need.
For example: 3rd February 20233/2/20233rd Feb...
TIME
STRING/TEXT
This can be in different forms of how you enter your time of assembly.
Similarly to the DATE, there is no strict guidelines.
ITINERARY
STRING/TEXT
This is basically a description of your meetride. However, please avoid the
use of , as it will mess up the inputs of your meetride
details!
You should be brief and detailed with your itinerary so all riders will be
aware on what is to be expected of.
If you're looking to create a list of locations, consider adding a
> infront of the item.
Example
An example to creating a meetride at Old Airport Road on 3rd Feb,
3pm would be as follows: /meetride Old Airport Road, 3rd Feb, 3pm, > Dinner > Rounding > Chill and Catchup
Note
Do note that the , is a divider, that splits the
values you enter. So please avoid using additional , when you create
your meetrides!
Editing meet rides
Editing of the /meetride is similar to creating of meetrides. However, the
command is slightly different with /editevent
You can refer to this for how the format is to be done: Click here
Join & Leave meet rides
Each meetride that had been created will be given 2 buttons for easy joining and leaving.
Should any riders would like to join, they can simply press the JOIN button.
Note
Spamming the Leave button when a user is not in the list will
reflect a warning to the user. This is to prevent the user from unknowingly spamming
the bot as it can affect the quality of the bot's service.
Checkpoints Jam
It will be hard to stay away from the temptations of crossing the border on a bike.
Hence, we do our best to ensure that you know the traffic's status like right before you
reach the Customs at Woodlands and Tuas!
/checkjb
/checkjb will immediately fetch you the latest status as provided by the
Singapore Land Transport Authority. As of writing this documentation, we have yet found
reliable source from the Malaysian Authority to provide their side of the the traffic
situations for bikers. Hence, if you do, please let me know!
/checktuas
/checktuas will immediately fetch you the latest status as provided by the
Singapore Land Transport Authority. As of writing this documentation, we have yet found
reliable source from the Malaysian Authority to provide their side of the the traffic
situations for bikers. Hence, if you do, please let me know!
Lottery (SG only)
Lottery is part of every Singaporean and Malaysian lives. I'm sure it's hard to play a
bit of betting sometimes....
/4dnow
/4dnow will fetch you the latest results available from the Singapore Pools
website. While during the drawing process, we're unable to know the numbers as per radio's
broadcast, we can at least know the finalised results and prize pool.
/totonow
/totonow will fetch you the latest results available from the Singapore Pools
website. While during the drawing process, we're unable to know the numbers as per radio's
broadcast, we can at least know the finalised results and prize pool.
COE Status
Certificate of Entitlement, the paper that cost you more than the bike itself.
/coenow
/coenow will fetch you the current results including the ongoing bidding. This
is to allow users to keep track of the ongoing bidding prices, and status of the bidding
stage.
Craft Deals
Craft Deals is a place where the RABS team will occassionally secure deals for riders on
behalf. Customers of the bot that is interested in the deal can do so by transacting on
the Telegram interface directly and have the product shipped or voucher issued to you.
/craftdeals
/craftdeals will fetch you the latest deal or a placeholder for businesses to
consider working with us.
Support Us
It isn't easy to develop and maintain the bot without some appreciation. It helps if you
can consider even donating a dollar or 2 for my chocolatey desire.
/supportriders
/supportriders will invoke the donation page where you can place a donation.
Each donations will then be announced to the group you invoked the function from.
Frequently Asked Questions
So you must have some questions as to how to use or what's the bot about? Here are some
key questions over time that had been asked!
Meetrides
Can you create multiple meet rides
in a group chat?
Unfortunately, you cannot create multiple meet rides concurrently in a group chat. Each group
chat is only allowed to have one meetride on-going at any time.
However, that doesn't refrain you from creating another meetride on other group chats.
Should that ever be improved to create multiple meetrides, we'll announce it on the RABS
Info Page and on the documentation.
Are the meetrides created safe?
Yes, each meetride details are safely created and not meant to be disclosed. Each meetride
information is also delete upon cancelling of the events.
How often are the meetrides reminder
being sent?
According to the peak use time of the bot, we have designated the reminders to be sent on
7am
1pm
5pm
8pm
10pm
12am
This is to remind the group of an ongoing meetride and solicit them to join.
Can we disable the reminders?
Not at this point of time.
Will the bot need administrator
access?
Yes, and no. The bot minimally needs to have access to Message Pins. That alone will be
sufficient.
Are there a limit of how many riders
can join a meetride?
Nope, there is currently no limit set. However, we do suggest that you abide the local
regulations in riding in a convoy.
Information Sources
Where do you source for all your
information?
Depending on the information fetched, it can be pulled from various sources.
However, the credits goes to the following organizations:
