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- Another question: the lack of data on the availability of gasoline is exacerbating the hype at gas stations
Another question: the lack of data on the availability of gasoline is exacerbating the hype at gas stations
Drivers who are queuing for gasoline are faced with a lack of clear information about its availability at the gas station. Private companies' fuel geocards often broadcast outdated or unreliable data. Experts believe that the creation of an official resource with information about the availability of fuel and the length of queues at gas stations could help in this situation. However, the implementation of this idea may face a number of difficulties. At the same time, the regional authorities and the gas station networks themselves continue to impose restrictions on refueling cars. Details can be found in the Izvestia article.
How can drivers find out about the queue at the gas station
The unstable situation in the Russian fuel market is generating queues at gas stations in a number of regions. The people who stand in them are faced with a lack of real information about the availability of fuel at the gas station. This often forms the queues themselves and creates congestion on the roads.
"I got into a huge traffic jam on the Yauza Embankment the other day," one of the Moscow motorists told Izvestia. — All because of the queue at the gas station, in which there were 70 cars — they completely occupied one of the two lanes. Moreover, when I drove past the gas station, I saw that it was closed, there was no fuel there, and people were standing in vain. And after a few hundred meters, at the next gas station, there are only 10 cars, there is fuel, and if desired, you can refuel there in 15 minutes. The next day, I encountered a similar situation on the MKAD in the Myakinino area.
In the Trans-Baikal Territory, drivers took off the queue, which stretched for 4 km. For several hours, people waited for fuel trucks at gas stations in Voronezh and several other regions. And this is not only a waste of time, motorists explain, but also fines for parking in the wrong place, the risk of accidents, especially near gas stations on expressways. So, on August 17, in the Krasnodar Territory, a truck crashed into a queue of cars at a gas station. As a result of the accident, one person was killed and two were injured.
Searching for gasoline, comparing prices and limits at different gas stations, waiting in queues, increase the level of aggression, as a result, gas station employees complain about increased cases of inappropriate customer behavior, clashes and incidents. In St. Petersburg, one of the skirmishes at a gas station ended in a stabbing the other day. Local media reported fights at gas stations in Volzhsky, Volgograd region, and in Rybnoye, near Ryazan.
Against the background of the fuel crisis, specialized online services have appeared, but they do not solve the problem, primarily due to the fact that none of them aggregates as much up-to-date information as possible.
In early June, Yandex made an interactive map with information about fuel availability and queues at gas stations available to users.
"On the map, you can see the gas stations where drivers refueled most recently, filter the refueling by the right type of fuel and check the queues," the company's press service told Izvestia. Various data is used to collect information, including technology similar to the service that shows traffic jams, information from Yandex Maps, fuel orders from Yandex Gas Stations and Go, and the results of driver surveys. But drivers complain that the information in the app is not displayed across all gas station networks.
2GIS and Avito have similar services. The 2GIS developers claim that the map shows the current fuel availability at 29,000 gas stations across Russia (this roughly corresponds to the total number of gas stations). The Avito Auto service states that the availability of gas stations is determined based on the analysis of 10 million transactions on fuel cards and through a mobile application, as well as on the basis of aggregated data from open sources.
Many large banks have similar cards. They are based on the analysis of impersonal transactions and show where fuel purchases have recently been recorded. You can also sometimes find information about fuel sales limits in such applications.
But often the information in such services is irrelevant — it appears with a delay of several hours or even more.
The second type of service is applications and other online resources of fuel companies and gas station networks themselves. For example, the interactive map of Rosneft shows the entire network of the company, partner gas stations and service stations that accept the Rosneft universal fuel card. At the same time, the map shows only information about the location of gas stations and fuel prices, but not about its availability or purchase restrictions.
Tatneft's map shows the fuel sold and prices at 1,150 gas stations across the country. The Lukoil application on the smartphone displays the fuel being sold and the price for it, however, it is noted that "the actual price of fuel at the gas station may differ from the information posted in the mobile application."
The Gazprom Neft map, unlike the services of other fuel companies, shows, in addition to prices, data on the availability of various types of fuel, but not at all gas stations.
In addition to the official applications of large companies, there are also independent gas station search maps where fuel availability data is generated by users themselves who have checked the terms of sale of gasoline and diesel on their own experience. The GdeBenz application has become a popular resource. The service does not make its own statements, does not check or confirm marks, is not connected to gas station networks and does not sell fuel. It is made by drivers and for Russian drivers, the creators of the application say. In addition, there is an opportunity to chat online with other motorists. A similar Benzuber app has also become popular among drivers.
There are also bots and Telegram channels dedicated to finding gas stations and updating information about them. Such services are often paid for or exist on user donations. They collect confirmations from drivers and change the information based on them. But if the number of users of such a service is small, then the information may also be very outdated.
Is it necessary to create a unified information system
The resources of private companies help drivers decide which gas station is better to go to, so as not to stand in line and choose the optimal price. However, in fact, the information in them often turns out to be unreliable or irrelevant.
— Information on gas station search services often does not correspond to reality. Most resources have data on how long the information has been updated. If a long period has passed since the update, then the information may be outdated. There is also information about how the information was obtained. Unfortunately, we need to understand that quite a large number of users have started to put marks that do not correspond to reality," said Valery Soldunov, chairman of the All—Russian Society of Motorists.
According to the expert, the most up-to-date information is reflected in the services that receive data from cash terminals.
Akhmetzhan Makhmutov, ex-Minister of Digital Development of the Vologda Region, explained that there is currently no full-fledged, mandatory data transmission system for all market participants. Therefore, information about fuel availability may be incomplete, outdated, or biased in favor of those networks that have entered into partnership agreements.
The creation of a single official resource at the government level can help reassure drivers and distribute demand more evenly, experts believe. Izvestia sent a request to the Ministry of Energy and the Ministry of Finance.
Akhmetzhan Makhmutov believes that the creation of a unified information system is technically possible and is not even something unique. The key question is who will be its operator. There are two possible ways here: either government regulation with mandatory reporting by gas station operators, or a consortium of major market players with the support of relevant associations. The main difficulty of such a project lies not in writing code, but in organizational and legal issues, the expert notes.
Alexander Frolov, Deputy Director General of the National Energy Institute, believes that the creation of such a state resource would benefit drivers and the fuel industry. Information about the amount of remaining fuel and how many cars it will last could redistribute queues and reduce them. However, an official resource with such information — for example, about the availability of large amounts of fuel at certain gas stations — may provoke attacks by the Ukrainian Armed Forces on them, the expert expressed concern.
Such an initiative at the government level will require budget financing, said Igor Yushkov, a leading analyst at the National Energy Security Fund. But these funds are unlikely to be allocated, as the government, when making decisions to stabilize the fuel market, assumes that the deficit in certain regions is temporary.
— In September, the volume of gasoline consumption traditionally begins to decrease. In addition, the authorities expect that the refineries will be out of repair and the situation will improve in any case," Igor Yushkov believes.
Therefore, the government will not invest in the creation of such a resource for motorists in the long term, the expert believes.
According to Akhmetzhan Makhmutov, a pilot project of such an official service at the level of one or two regions can be launched in three to six months. A full—fledged federal implementation covering most gas stations is a horizon of one and a half to two years, provided that there are no serious delays in legislative matters. A realistic estimate of the cost of such a federal system ranges from several tens to several hundred million rubles for development, implementation and support in the first year. This is comparable to the budgets of other government information systems, but significantly cheaper than losses from inefficient logistics or excessive demand in times of crisis, the expert estimates.
What are the restrictions on gas stations in the regions?
Since the beginning of August, authorities and fuel companies have introduced or extended restrictions on gas stations in a number of Russian regions. For example, in the Volgograd and Astrakhan regions, limits on fuel dispensation were re-introduced at oil companies' gas stations. The Kaluga, Lipetsk and Orenburg regions have introduced a system of even and odd days, when cars with different registration numbers can refuel on different days. In the Orel region, the odd-even system was abolished, but limits on liters were left. The same situation persists in the Samara region. Also, some gas stations have reintroduced limits in Moscow and the Moscow region.
At the same time, the Novosibirsk Region became the first region whose authorities concluded an agreement with an oil company on voluntary restraint of gasoline prices. Until November 15, the maximum trade premium for fuel supplied by Gazprom Neft to the region should not exceed 15% of the wholesale price.
Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak announced on August 19 that Russia had started importing fuel from other countries. According to him, the government also expects that a number of refineries will be out of repair in the near future, which will significantly improve the fuel situation.
The first wave of queues at gas stations in Russia appeared at the end of May and lasted about a month and a half. At the end of July, Novak said that the fuel balance and the situation at gas stations in Russia had improved. At the same time, in recent days, a new wave of fuel shortages and queues at gas stations has been observed in a number of regions. At a meeting on the situation on the domestic fuel market on August 14, a representative of the Ministry of Energy said that the situation with fuel supplies to gas stations remains tense in a number of regions of the country. In particular, the issue of providing fuel to the Orenburg, Lipetsk, Tver and Orel regions, Tuva, Khakassia, Krasnodar, Zabaikalsky, Primorsky and Krasnoyarsk Territories was raised, the Cabinet of Ministers said in a statement.
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