CASE STUDY · LOGISTICS · MARKETPLACE · 2024
Transport Mach — A two-sided logistics marketplace with auction-based pricing
Designed the complete experience — user app, driver app, and super-admin portal — for an on-demand truck transport platform. Introduced a controlled auction system for VIP routes that reshaped how driver earnings work.
01 · PROBLEM
Truck transport in India is offline, opaque, and built against the driver.
Offline booking
Most bookings happen on WhatsApp and phone — no source of truth, no tracking.
Opaque pricing
Pricing is negotiated per-trip — drivers lose margin to middlemen and inconsistency.
Zero verification
No sender/receiver documentation means high fraud and dispute rates.
02 · THE SYSTEM
Three surfaces, one coordinated marketplace.
Every decision had to account for three audiences simultaneously. A feature that helped users could hurt drivers. A pricing rule that protected drivers could cripple supply. The admin portal existed to hold the whole system in balance.
03 · THE AUCTION
Designing a controlled auction for VIP routes.
When multiple users requested the same high-demand VIP route, we didn't want a first-come-first-served race. We wanted price discovery — but fair and bounded.
I designed a controlled auction: the admin sets a price cap, users bid within that cap, the highest bid wins, and the driver gets the upside. No predatory pricing, no driver exploitation, clear market mechanics.
Auction state machine: Request → Match → Bid window → Winner → Dispatch
04 · DUAL MODE
One booking flow, two economic models.
Every booking forks into two modes: shared (cost-effective, route-optimized, multiple shipments combined) or VIP (dedicated, faster, premium, auction-eligible). The flow is unified — users choose based on urgency vs. cost in a single interaction.
05 · USER APP
Booking a truck, in three taps.
06 · DRIVER APP
Built for real road conditions.
07 · ADMIN PORTAL
The third surface that holds the system together.
08 · REFLECTION
What I learned designing for both sides.
- Designing for drivers taught me more about constraint-driven UX than any SaaS project. Bandwidth, literacy, phone quality — every decision had to survive actual Indian road conditions.
- Two-sided marketplaces need a third surface — admin. You don't realize how much the admin portal shapes the product until you're the one drawing the pricing rules.
- The auction was elegant in design and messy in testing. We iterated the bid-window timing five times before it felt fair to both sides.
09 · OUTCOME
A marketplace that ships, across three surfaces.
Three coordinated apps, one economic system, and a new pricing mechanic that reshaped how drivers earn on VIP routes.
Three surfaces shipped
User app + Driver app + Admin portal
Auction mechanic live
Controlled bidding in production
Driver-first economics
Transparent pricing, higher earnings
Full system design
From IA to interaction to admin tooling