Atlas
Northbound's dispatchers were running the whole eastern corridor from nine browser tabs and a whiteboard. We replaced it with a single live operations screen built for keyboard-first work.
- Challenge
- Nine disconnected tools and a whiteboard
- Outcome
- One live screen, 41% faster dispatch
- Client
- Northbound Freight
- Services
- Custom Software + Web & Mobile
- Industry
- Logistics & Freight
- Year
- 2025
Atlas dispatch board showing the eastern corridor
The challenge
Northbound moves about 1,100 loads a week through the eastern corridor. Dispatch ran on nine browser tabs, a shared spreadsheet, and a whiteboard that one person understood.
The brief asked for a dashboard. What dispatchers actually needed was fewer places to look — a single surface where a load's state, its driver, and the next decision were all in the same field of view.
- Screens per dispatch
- 9 → 1
- Time to assign a load
- −41%
- Drivers dispatched
- 400
- To first production leg
- 11 wks
Our approach
We designed the dense state first. Not the empty dashboard with four tidy cards — the Tuesday morning view with 300 loads in flight, six exceptions, and a driver calling about a closed weighbridge.
Everything is keyboard-first. Dispatchers are typists, not clickers; the fastest ones never leave the home row. The map is a consequence of the data, not the interface to it.
“Our dispatchers stopped complaining. After eleven years of complaining.”
- Engagement
- Survey → Interface → Build, 11 weeks to production
- Stack
- Next.js, TypeScript, Postgres, MapLibre
- Team
- Two from Intervia, four from Northbound
- Handover
- Docs, two training sessions, 30 days of cover
Gallery