Need to go, but no toilet nearby? Developer created a Telegram bot with a map of public toilets

«One day I was returning to Minsk from a bus tour to St. Petersburg. It was around 7 AM, and after a long journey without stops, I really needed a toilet. At the station, I quickly found the right spot on Yandex Maps, but on site, it turned out the toilet was closed,» Yauhen recounts.

— Then I thought: why is there still no simple and convenient service that helps quickly find *exactly* open public toilets, and not just points on a map without up-to-date information?

I decided to write a Telegram bot for myself that searches for public toilets.

You launch the bot and search for a toilet

The idea of the service is as simple as possible: to give a person a quick and understandable way to find the nearest public toilet without unnecessary actions.

It's enough to follow the link, open the Telegram bot, and send your geolocation. After that, the bot will immediately show a list of the nearest toilets. All that remains is to choose a suitable option and open a card with a description and route in Yandex Maps, 2GIS, Google Maps, or Apple Maps.

How to send geolocation manually

• Go to the bot and click the «Start» button. Then:
• Click on the paperclip icon in the bottom left.
• Select the «Geolocation» section.
• Click «Send Geolocation».

If you need to specify a particular location, not your current geolocation, click on the search icon in the top right and enter the desired address, for example: Minsk.

Павялічыць

At this stage, the bot is only available for Minsk. In the future, I plan to add support for other cities in Belarus.

Why is this needed

The idea itself is not unique — similar solutions already exist in various countries. There are especially many of them in Japan, where great attention is paid to public toilet infrastructure. Such services there can show not only the location of toilets but also their condition. For example, the level of occupancy or cleanliness of the stalls.

Yes, toilets are already marked on regular maps. But these applications have a different task: they simply show a point on the ground. I, however, want to create a service where you can display what is truly important to the user: filter by types, cleanliness, accessibility for people with disabilities, availability of a changing table, and other parameters.

This possibility is foreseen in my service, but this functionality is not yet available to users.

I also want users to be able to add toilets to the service themselves. For now, I've created a group where people send the necessary locations. Once a user base is gathered, I will create a separate bot. There, users will be able to add toilets and receive rewards for it.»

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