The challenge
The client manages a fleet of 2,000+ delivery vehicles across Romania. Their dispatchers were using spreadsheets and phone calls to coordinate routes — no real-time visibility, no route optimization, and drivers had no mobile tools. Fuel costs were 22% above industry benchmark due to suboptimal routing.
They needed a complete platform: a web dashboard for dispatchers, a mobile app for drivers, and a real-time data pipeline connecting everything.
Our approach
We designed a three-layer architecture: a real-time ingestion pipeline (GPS data from drivers → Redis Pub/Sub → WebSocket to dashboard), a PostGIS-powered spatial database for geofencing and route queries, and client apps optimized for their specific use cases.
The driver app needed to work with spotty cellular coverage on rural routes, so we built it offline-first with background GPS tracking that queues position updates and syncs when connectivity returns.
Key technical decisions:
- PostGIS for spatial queries instead of application-level geo filtering
- Redis Pub/Sub for real-time position broadcasting (not Kafka — right tool for current scale)
- Mapbox GL for smooth map rendering with 2,000+ moving markers
- Chose NOT to build route optimization in-house — integrated Google Routes API with custom constraints
What we built
A full logistics platform used by 200+ dispatchers and 2,000+ drivers daily:
- Real-time fleet map with sub-500ms position updates
- Geofence alerts for delivery zones, restricted areas, and route deviations
- Automated route optimization reducing fuel costs by 22%
- Driver mobile app with offline GPS tracking and delivery confirmation
- Analytics dashboards: fuel consumption, delivery times, driver performance
- Webhook integrations with their existing ERP and invoicing systems