With the advent of self-service fill stations around the world, operators of such fill stations incur great losses with the intentional and non-intentional thievery of the petroleum product. That is to say that some times, fuel is unintentional stolen from fill stations due to the mistaken belief that a spouse paid for the fuel or the customer forgot after spending an extended period of time in the fill station. However, most of the time the act of thievery is intentional. Unfortunately the crime is not often pursued by the local authorities due to the low value (less than $30) of the crime. If a fill station combats the thievery via the requirement of pre-paying for fuel, they lose many customers due to the added inconvenience. Gasoline drive-offs is a $272 Million per year problem in 2000 to the 153,200 gasoline dispensing convenient stores in the USA as well as all other non-prepay fuel dispensing stations throughout the world. A survey of one town (Richmond, KY) revealed 27 gasoline stations had 120 pumps with 407 nozzles. If this ratio were carried throughout the USA, it would amount to 2.3 million nozzles. Currently, stealing gasoline is only petty thief and is not pursued by law enforcement unless the storeowners will prosecute; which they don't since court time is more expensive than the gasoline. The thief can always say it was an accident since he thought his wife paid for the gas or the cashier forgot to ring up the gas while he purchased other items.
Major Problems:
•Loss of customers due to pre-pay inconvenience.•Gasoline theft for 2005 was $300 million•Average loss per store selling gasoline was approximately $2,678 in 2005.•A theft of $30 can offset profits by $1,500.•Gasoline theft is a petty offense and court time is more costly than the gas.
Solution:
•A fuel-dispensing nozzle that interlocks to a vehicles fill pipe.•Interlock initiated by the pump turning on and spout insertion.•Lock maintained by the fluid pressure from the fuel.•Remote operation, unlocks once payment is received and pump is shut off.•Give control over the gasoline back to the station and eliminate the honor system.
General Operation:
•Select Payment: Inside or Outside–This sets the pump for automatic or manual unlock.•Select gas, Insert into fill pipe, and Pump–Spout latches will engage and lock to the fill pipe.•Nozzle kicks off and The pump stays on–Spout latches remain engaged•Pay–Credit/Debit cards will automatically unlock the nozzle.(auto)–Cash payment will have to be given to the attendant for them to turn off the pump and unlock the nozzle.(manual)
