SLICs

Instant destination lookups for UPS Feeder drivers — no more digging through a binder.

[Live demo link coming soon] · [https://github.com/WebDevilishSmile]

---

The Problem

Before a Feeder driver leaves the building, dispatch hands them a SLIC — a short code identifying their destination (e.g. 1809). To actually get there, the driver then had to either flip through a printed binder of addresses or ask dispatch to look it up and print a slip with the address and phone number. It worked, but it was slow, paper-dependent, and repeated the same manual lookup hundreds of times a week across the building.

What It Does

SLICs replaces the binder with a single search bar. A driver types (or scans) a SLIC and instantly gets:

• The destination's address and phone number
• A one-tap link that opens the address directly in Google Maps
• A tappable phone number that calls the destination's dispatch right from the app
• Driver-added comments on each SLIC, so drivers can share firsthand knowledge that never makes it into an official address — where the actual entrance is, which roads to avoid (height/weight restrictions), who to contact on-site if there's an issue, and other details you only learn by having been there
• An admin panel (built for myself, as the maintainer) to add, edit, or remove SLICs as locations and details change — no redeploy needed

Real-World Impact

This isn't a demo project — it's used daily by drivers in a building of roughly 270. A few numbers from production analytics:

• 200 of 269 drivers in the building have used the app at least once since it launched in early 2025
• Averaging roughly 130 combined lookups/day across both live deployments as of September 2026
• Individual destination pages see far more repeat visits than unique visitors over the same period — drivers are coming back to the same lookups again and again as part of their regular routes, not just trying it once

(Numbers pulled from Vercel Analytics + app database — update periodically rather than treating as fixed.)

Tech Stack

• Framework: Next.js / React / TypeScript
• Database: MongoDB
• File storage: Vercel Blob (per-destination directions PDFs)
• Auth: Google sign-in / Email/password
• Access: open sign-up, decided on purpose (2026-10-28): anyone can make an account and use the SLIC lookup, tips and places, with no approval step. Email/password accounts get a link to confirm their address, which is what lets the app trust it (a Buy Me a Coffee membership, linking a later Google sign-in). The weekly cover bid (Covers) has its own gate: an admin links the account to the driver's name on the on-call sheet.
• Hosting/Analytics: Vercel

Notable Engineering Details

• Admin CRUD without redeploys — location data changes constantly (new stops, updated phone numbers), so the admin panel lets data stay current without touching code.
• Fast search over a growing dataset — built to return a match instantly even as the number of stored SLICs has grown.
• Crowdsourced local knowledge — official address data can't capture a hidden entrance, a bridge with a low clearance, or who to actually call when a dock is closed. Letting drivers comment directly on a SLIC turns the app from a static directory into a shared knowledge base built from what drivers have actually experienced on that route.

Screenshots

[Coming soon — screenshots of the search bar, a destination page, and the admin panel.]

Why I Built This

I'm a Class A Feeder driver — this wasn't a coding exercise, it was a problem I ran into on the job every day. I built it, shipped it, and kept improving it based on what other drivers in my building actually needed.