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UK government launches fuel forecourt price API

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Re: UK government launches fuel forecourt price API

#21

Post by maffyoo »

oniony wrote: post #18
maffyoo wrote: post #12

When see things like this, I always think of the Chinese proverb "An inch of time is worth an inch of gold, but it is hard to buy one inch of time with one inch of gold" Which always says to me that its not worth it just use the quickest option Take the example drcongo posted: "Yesterday I had to drive to a nearby town, just 20 minutes away, and noticed that every single petrol station there was a good 5p per litre c…

I've also wondered about whether to fully fill my tank or drive on a small amount so that I'm not using fuel to carry fuel. Do you know of any metrics on that?

you can probably work it out but you have to make a lot of assumptions :)

Ultimately how much is your time worth? in the example given drcongo's time is worth £1.28 an hour.

Re: UK government launches fuel forecourt price API

#23

Post by embedding-shape »

oniony wrote: post #18
maffyoo wrote: post #12

When see things like this, I always think of the Chinese proverb "An inch of time is worth an inch of gold, but it is hard to buy one inch of time with one inch of gold" Which always says to me that its not worth it just use the quickest option Take the example drcongo posted: "Yesterday I had to drive to a nearby town, just 20 minutes away, and noticed that every single petrol station there was a good 5p per litre c…

I've also wondered about whether to fully fill my tank or drive on a small amount so that I'm not using fuel to carry fuel. Do you know of any metrics on that?

I haven't made any calculations, and it's more a hunch, but considering you usually need to remove hundreds of KG in order to make an impact on how much fuel is being spent, 40-50L of gas (~40KG difference between full and empty maybe?) would have an marginal effect on how much fuel is spent to carry a full tank vs 10% filled tank.

Besides, with a smaller tank, you'll make more trips to tank it, and also have less choice to go to gas stations that are further away but have cheaper price. Then again it becomes a question of "Do I want more time or more money?", back to square one :)

Edit: Also, someone correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't the fuel pump use fuel itself as a coolant or something? Never investigated myself, but some car-knower once told me that running the tank on low always isn't good for the fuel pump, or something like that. If that's true, running with 10% of the fuel would mean more maintenance too, potentially removing any savings in the first place.

Re: UK government launches fuel forecourt price API

#24

Post by graemep »

jpfromlondon wrote: post #20

More unnecessary meddling, this causes price convergence so anyone living close to a typically lower cost source of fuel is going to have an almost imperceptible increase in relative cost. They certainly love spending taxpayer money on nothing don't they.

Providing better price information makes a market work better.

Re: UK government launches fuel forecourt price API

#25

Post by nmeofthestate »

tene80i wrote: post #17
nmeofthestate wrote: post #8

I wonder if the CSV is supposed to list all petrol stations, as currently it only has 4 with city==Edinburgh. Edit: after asking AI about this I would say the CSV is pretty useless as a comprehensive source of info on UK fuel prices.

It’s only just been launched. AI isn’t a great way to find out about brand new things.

Apparently although it is a requirement to upload data from today, there's an effective grace period of 3 months (sorry - got that from AI).

Re: UK government launches fuel forecourt price API

#26

Post by entuno »

maffyoo wrote: post #12

When see things like this, I always think of the Chinese proverb "An inch of time is worth an inch of gold, but it is hard to buy one inch of time with one inch of gold" Which always says to me that its not worth it just use the quickest option Take the example drcongo posted: "Yesterday I had to drive to a nearby town, just 20 minutes away, and noticed that every single petrol station there was a good 5p per litre c…

I almost never go out of my way for fuel, because as you say, it's rarely worth it once you factor in your time (never mind the fuel spent).

But it's still useful to know about price variation so that you can plan ahead. I regularly drive past several different petrol stations, and if I know that one of them is usually cheaper or usually more expensive then I choose to use or avoid it, or to decide that I'll fill up tomorrow when I'm going that way rather than today at a more expensive one.

And that'd be more useful built into satnav, so that if I know I have to fill up somewhere along my route then I can pick the cheapest place, since there's no real time cost to any of the options compared to each other.

Re: UK government launches fuel forecourt price API

#27

Post by embedding-shape »

xnorswap wrote: post #15

This is great news. There used to be a handy email newsletter that did this, but then when everything became "apps" the newsletter disappeared in favour of an app, which then became a premium paid service only.

It's missing closing the circle with one of the users of the premium paid only service to start their own newsletter because they got tired of the paid product. It's only a matter of time.

Re: UK government launches fuel forecourt price API

#29

Post by bonsai_spool »

jpfromlondon wrote: post #20

More unnecessary meddling, this causes price convergence so anyone living close to a typically lower cost source of fuel is going to have an almost imperceptible increase in relative cost. They certainly love spending taxpayer money on nothing don't they.

> More unnecessary meddling

This is a funny take, because we ostensibly assume 'perfect information' when we extol the virtues of capitalism. It would appear the government is supporting capitalism with this particular initiative...

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