How We Built a Sober Driver Booking System in Moldova: Real-time Dispatch with Node.js, Supabase & Vercel

In September 2024, Moldova reclassified drunk driving from an administrative offense into a criminal offense — with prison sentences up to 4 years and fines reaching 150,000 MDL (~3,000 EUR).

This single legal change transformed the local market for designated driver services overnight. As the team behind PlusRent, a car rental and sober driver platform in Chișinău, we suddenly faced 3-5x more booking requests during peak hours (Friday-Saturday nights, 22:00-04:00).

Our existing manual dispatch system — phone calls, WhatsApp messages, Excel spreadsheets — became a bottleneck within weeks.…