After an IRC conversation about GPS, we randomly got onto a discussion about finding the cheapest petrol prices and where those services get the data.
There were a few ideas:
- users submissions/reviews (unreliable – user input, low frequency of updates)
- buying it from the station chains/forecourts (unreliable – only as big as the number of people you’re paying)
- web scraping (unreliable – not many station prices are public or updated)
Well, turns out there’s a very clever and sneaky way of doing it…
Two websites list current petrol station prices for the UK, they do this by buying data from corporate fuel card firms. These cards are used by big company fleet drivers when they pay for diesel or petrol and as a by product information is collected every day on almost every petrol station’s costs.
From Martin (fastest talking man on Radio2) Lewis’ site moneysavingexpert.com
Any other applications for this data collection method you can think of?
