GasBuddy Blog

Message Forum - Read Message

Category: Suggest a GasBuddy improvement > Topics	Add to favorite topics Post New Topic

Author	Topic: Station Out of Gas Indicator Needed	Topic is locked Back to Topics

EBR Champion Author Greensboro Posts:22,008 Points:3,294,320 Joined:Mar 2004	Message Posted: Oct 14, 2012 10:29:17 AM Ignore EBR Report Abuse We need a checkbox, or a radio button, or some such, to allow us to indicate when a station is out of a given grade. In the event of the occasional natural disaster or other interruption of the distribution/delivery system, different stations (by brand, by distributor, whatever) may or may not be affected at any one time. Knowing which stations have gas at ANY price and which don't is every bit as useful as knowing what price each station has - and is much more useful than knowing what price an out-of-gas station had the last time it had anything to sell. It's not a problem when fuel is plentiful and the distribution network is flowing smoothly. But it's kinda urgent when the prooblem does arise - even if it's only for a limited time (days?) in a limited geographic area. And the time to think through, design, and implement an approach to indicating it is NOT to wait until it occurs again.

EBR

Champion Author
Greensboro

Posts:22,008
Points:3,294,320
Joined:Mar 2004

Message Posted: Oct 14, 2012 10:29:17 AM

Ignore EBR Report Abuse

We need a checkbox, or a radio button, or some such, to allow us to indicate when a station is out of a given grade.

In the event of the occasional natural disaster or other interruption of the distribution/delivery system, different stations (by brand, by distributor, whatever) may or may not be affected at any one time. Knowing which stations have gas at ANY price and which don't is every bit as useful as knowing what price each station has - and is much more useful than knowing what price an out-of-gas station had the last time it had anything to sell.

It's not a problem when fuel is plentiful and the distribution network is flowing smoothly. But it's kinda urgent when the prooblem does arise - even if it's only for a limited time (days?) in a limited geographic area.

And the time to think through, design, and implement an approach to indicating it is NOT to wait until it occurs again.

REPLIES (newest first)Ignore Short Messages

palantir24 Veteran Author Vermont Posts:405 Points:137,650 Joined:Oct 2010	Message Posted: Apr 1, 2013 8:37:28 AM Ignore palantir24 Report Abuse Good idea
joshou Sophomore Author Iowa Posts:116 Points:93,880 Joined:Feb 2012	Message Posted: Mar 31, 2013 12:45:27 AM Ignore joshou Report Abuse I really like this idea! There are times with the snow storms here that various grades will be out do to a stuck or slowed truck. around here you can go inside and ask about a "temporarily out of order" grade and they can tell you a guesstimated time they will have that grade back in stock for fill ups. for example an area truck stop ran out of diesel fuel at 9:00 am. they were planing on having more and be ready to pump by 4:00 pm. In this case I could have posted all four grades prices and checked out of fuel for diesel with maybe a drop down or input box allowing you to post when, ranging from an hour (say some kind of breakdown or repair fix) to several hours or days, or an unknown option, that they hope to have more of that grade. doing it like that would make it a little less work to maintain too. IF not otherwise updated at 4pm that grade would say available unless someone updated a changed time or posted it was available sooner
Don Moderator	Message Posted: Nov 15, 2012 11:53:06 AM Ignore Don Report Abuse Sure there is, users do not need to "claw" to find an area if they use the 'Search For Stations' button located above the map. On the following page users can search for stations by City, State or Zip. -Don
CampKohler Champion Author Sacramento Posts:9,678 Points:1,584,410 Joined:May 2007	Message Posted: Nov 14, 2012 5:51:00 PM Ignore CampKohler Report Abuse Is there a way to center the map on a member's area instead of clawing one's way there by use of the hand tool from the Sandy area?
Don Moderator	Message Posted: Nov 13, 2012 5:44:14 PM Ignore Don Report Abuse It sounds as though you may want to check out the Fuel Shortage Tracker. This topic has been discussed and addressed numerous times. Thank you for your feedback. -Don
chambleetiger Sophomore Author Atlanta Posts:227 Points:410,750 Joined:Aug 2008	Message Posted: Nov 12, 2012 4:47:39 PM Ignore chambleetiger Report Abuse ditto on this topic
EBR Champion Author Greensboro Posts:22,008 Points:3,294,320 Joined:Mar 2004	Message Posted: Nov 5, 2012 8:09:23 AM Ignore EBR Report Abuse There's a news article about a GasBuddy site (gasbuddy.com/sandy) for tracking fuel availability in the Sandy-affected areas. It's got 2 buttons - one to look for gas and one to report on availability. That's nice for this time around, and for folks in the affected areas I'm glad it's there. Is that going to be renamed something more generic and become THE way GB handles unusual outage situations? Or should we continue to lobby for a way to indicate availability (or rather, NON-availability) on the regular sites?
alice4236 Rookie Author Long Island Posts:1 Points:120 Joined:Nov 2012	Message Posted: Nov 4, 2012 7:09:03 AM Ignore alice4236 Report Abuse We need to know who has gas and who does not. There is really no way to track this for Sandy. How about asking the Gas Stations themselves to indicate when they have gas and how much supply they have ? In Emergency situtations like Sandy.
Scrapheap Champion Author Virginia Posts:14,689 Points:2,385,595 Joined:Sep 2006	Message Posted: Nov 3, 2012 6:01:12 PM Ignore Scrapheap Report Abuse Funny you should mention WTOP. Their source for gas prices has typically been GasBuddy. Sorry but you haven't provided any evidence that there are any sources that are keeping people in the area up to date on who has or who does not have gasoline. In fact, you seem to admit that the information you will get from those sources is transient in nature and not necessarily accurate. Gas_Buddy wrote > But if you're going to get transient emergency" information, aren't other venues more readily available and less dependent on "occasionally posting" members input? When it comes to who is open and selling gas after a hurricane, I haven't seen that venue and you have yet to provide links to them. I would prefer some information from GasBuddy and use it as one of several tools. [Edited by: Scrapheap at 11/3/2012 6:01:28 PM EST]
Gas_Buddy Champion Author Maryland Posts:26,197 Points:3,060,750 Joined:Aug 2004	Message Posted: Nov 3, 2012 5:21:55 PM Ignore Gas_Buddy Report Abuse Sorry if I'm not providing the most accurate information as to which gas stations are open or not at any given time in any given area but the consumer help desks of radio stations such as WINS or newspapers such as the Newark Star Ledger have been able to provide updated information, or as updated as they can get. They operate in the same manner as "The Snow Desk" of WTOP and WCBS and other "big city" media. But if you're going to get transient emergency" information, aren't other venues more readily available and less dependent on "occasionally posting" members input? [Edited by: Gas_Buddy at 11/3/2012 5:23:25 PM EST]
Scrapheap Champion Author Virginia Posts:14,689 Points:2,385,595 Joined:Sep 2006	Message Posted: Nov 3, 2012 5:13:44 PM Ignore Scrapheap Report Abuse Cutting through Gas_Buddyy's verbose post. Gas_Buddy wrote > Websites of local news media are generally more comprehensive and more accurate than what isolated Gas Buddy members can or will report; Really? Like which ones. Please provide a list. I've challenged you on this before and just got crickets in return. Beyond that, his argument seems to be that the information here is transient in nature. Well that has been the case for all gas prices ever posted here. Is he suggesting this site should not exist? Besides, some information on who does not have gas is better than misinformation in the form of a posted price for a station that does not have gas but someone needed their points, so they posted a price anyway. [Edited by: Scrapheap at 11/3/2012 5:18:53 PM EST]
Gas_Buddy Champion Author Maryland Posts:26,197 Points:3,060,750 Joined:Aug 2004	Message Posted: Nov 3, 2012 1:40:39 PM Ignore Gas_Buddy Report Abuse Here's my difficulty with having an "Out of Gas indicator" or a "Temporarily Closed" indicator. For the most part, it's temporary; it's short-lived. Granted there are extreme cases (such as the on-going New Jersey Sandy issues (among other places) but the outages or closings are generally short lived. Websites of local news media are generally more comprehensive and more accurate than what isolated Gas Buddy members can or will report; add to that (in my opinion) members will be qucker to close a station than they will be to re-open the station, skewing the information. Second, it's location. I'll beat a horse for a moment and say it's Location, Location, Location. The best solution would be if there were a way to click a link that opens a list of any/all gas stations in the affected area (the list being extracted from the Master Station List) which can be continually updated by members to indicate Open, Closed , and "Accurate as of XX:XX o'clock (according to [Member's name], with a one or two line comment box under the listing for that station, The problem with the above suggestion? The information, no matter how accurate at the time posted, is transient; the information is a moving target. Just because a member posts completely accurate and timely station update information doesn't mean that the station will or will not have fuel when another member gets to the station, nor will the length of line or waiting time be accurate when another member gets to the station (expecting the information to be accurate). What an unknown is, is that most of the "Where can I get gas...Who has on Staten Island...How long are the lines in..." are started by new members (i.e., the 120 point members - and I understand that) who are posting in the United States/Canada discussion categories and not in their local discussion categories (where more knowledgeable people can answer their questions, however accurate or timely), and they never return, meaning no one knows what if any information has been useful. Even having a list of Open/Closed gas stations, and even knowing there are/there are not waiting lines, stations (for staffing reasons, just trying to get someone to work the station) will or may continually be short of or resupplied fuel; they may stop the line from moving and close for "a couple of hours" in order to bring in a delivery truck to resupply the station. More and more I'm of the view that these are local discussion issues, and that there could be a banner on the home pages when there's a "possible significant closing" that directs members (especially new members) to their local discussion forum and directs them to their local media, and that Gas Buddy as a collective organization should "stay out of being responsible" - because we all know that people will yell that the information was wrong (by the time they got to the gas station) and Gas Buddy misdirected them, business. Local media, radio, television, newspapers, chambers of commerce and better business bureaus, etc. websites, are better able to respond to such issues than random Gas Buddy members. I'm open-minded but I simply can't see a "Gas Buddy solution", even if it's simply temporarily marking gas stations as being closed...out of fuel...let alone telling people about changing prices or waiting lines during such turbulent/transient times.
aladdin9 All-Star Author Tucson Posts:636 Points:1,835,915 Joined:Apr 2006	Message Posted: Nov 2, 2012 11:24:10 AM Ignore aladdin9 Report Abuse I guess the people back east affected by the outages haven't bumped this post due to the power outages and inability to use the forums from many mobile devices. If we are planning for disasters, another feature to track on the MSL should be "backup power" so when there is a power outage people can find stations that are still open.
Scrapheap Champion Author Virginia Posts:14,689 Points:2,385,595 Joined:Sep 2006	Message Posted: Oct 16, 2012 9:13:27 AM Ignore Scrapheap Report Abuse Marking a station as "Temporarily Closed" in the MSL does not prevent people from reporting prices for that station.
scoutmaster Champion Author Pittsburgh Posts:82,137 Points:3,280,345 Joined:Mar 2003	Message Posted: Oct 16, 2012 8:41:07 AM Ignore scoutmaster Report Abuse Considering how infrequent this happens, the MSL change would ensure no price is reported.
EBR Champion Author Greensboro Posts:22,008 Points:3,294,320 Joined:Mar 2004	Message Posted: Oct 16, 2012 8:36:58 AM Ignore EBR Report Abuse That would require a member to go to the MSL to "close" the station there, then go back again to "reopen" it once the station got their delivery and was able to sell again. It would be MUCH more convenient if we could indicate "out of gas" or "no gas available" or "station doesn't sell this grade (ever or just at the moment)" from somewhere within the existing price-reporting mechanisms. It shouldn't be any more cumbersome to report "he's not selling that grade at the moment" than it is to report a price.
scoutmaster Champion Author Pittsburgh Posts:82,137 Points:3,280,345 Joined:Mar 2003	Message Posted: Oct 15, 2012 5:10:44 AM Ignore scoutmaster Report Abuse How about if a station is out of gas it is closed on the MSL until they get gas to sell?
Scrapheap Champion Author Virginia Posts:14,689 Points:2,385,595 Joined:Sep 2006	Message Posted: Oct 15, 2012 2:04:22 AM Ignore Scrapheap Report Abuse seabrz7 wrote > Why not just put it in comments? Because you shouldn't be posting prices for stations that are not selling gas anyway.
seabrz7 Champion Author California Posts:1,400 Points:224,810 Joined:Feb 2012	Message Posted: Oct 14, 2012 7:35:57 PM Ignore seabrz7 Report Abuse Why not just put it in comments?
CampKohler Champion Author Sacramento Posts:9,678 Points:1,584,410 Joined:May 2007	Message Posted: Oct 14, 2012 1:20:23 PM Ignore CampKohler Report Abuse This suggestion has been added to the Suggestion Tracking List as a new topic on an existing subject.