Driver DET
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A companion tablet app for CODELCO El Teniente drivers, allowing them to send live GPS pulses and monitor passenger demand in real time. Built with Flutter to integrate seamlessly with the Transporte DET system.
Driver DET is a tablet-based mobile application designed specifically for bus drivers operating in the El Teniente division of CODELCO. Developed at Transapp, the app plays a critical role in powering the real-time features of the Transporte DET system by transmitting essential data directly from the drivers on the road.
How It Works
The application is installed on Android tablets mounted inside each bus. As the bus moves, Driver DET continuously sends GPS pulses to the backend, making it possible for workers using the Transporte DET app to track live bus locations with high accuracy. This direct data feed ensures reliability and synchronization between the driver and passenger-facing applications.
In addition to sharing the vehicle’s location, Driver DET allows drivers to monitor real-time passenger demand. The app displays how many people are currently waiting at upcoming stops, helping the driver anticipate boarding volumes and manage time efficiently. This feature is critical for minimizing idle time and maintaining operational flow across the transport network inside the mine.
Challenges
One of the main challenges of this project was ensuring real-time GPS data accuracy in an environment with limited and unstable network connectivity. The system needed to tolerate frequent signal loss, with mechanisms to cache GPS pulses locally and retry delivery when connectivity was restored — all without affecting the user experience.
Another major constraint was the hardware itself. The tablets used in the buses were low-end Android devices, with limited memory and processing power. This required the app to be highly optimized in terms of performance, battery usage, and memory consumption, avoiding any unnecessary background work and ensuring responsiveness at all times.
Additionally, integrating with the existing Transporte DET backend infrastructure meant maintaining consistency in data formats, time synchronization, and secure communication across systems.
Key Learnings
This project deepened my experience in building real-time communication systems between multiple mobile clients, reinforcing best practices for Flutter + backend integrations using secure HTTP and background tasks.
It also taught me the value of designing for constrained environments — both in terms of physical conditions (tablets in buses, drivers with gloves or limited time) and digital limitations (network drops, low latency requirements).
Moreover, I refined my understanding of user-centric design in non-standard settings: the goal was not to impress with features, but to empower the driver with just the right information, at just the right time.
Tech Stack
The app was developed using Flutter, offering the flexibility to scale or adapt the UI for different screen sizes — crucial for the varied tablet models in the fleet.
RESTful APIs powered the connection between Driver DET and the Transporte DET ecosystem, with robust error handling and retry logic for GPS pulse delivery.
All data was managed within a Clean Architecture structure, ensuring a clear separation of concerns across the domain, application, infrastructure, and presentation layers.
Conclusion
Driver DET was a focused and impactful addition to the Transporte DET system — not just technically, but operationally. Despite hardware limitations and unreliable connectivity, the app delivered consistent, real-time GPS streaming and actionable insights for drivers.
Its design and architecture were shaped by real-world constraints, leading to a solution that was lightweight, robust, and deeply tailored to the environment it serves. More than just a data emitter, Driver DET became an essential operational tool, giving drivers the information they need to keep the transport system moving efficiently — even in one of the most demanding industrial contexts in Chile.
