UK government launches fuel forecourt price API

Posted by Technolithic 5 days ago

UK government launches fuel forecourt price API(www.gov.uk)

121 points | 147 commentspage 4

rahimnathwani 5 days ago|

The CSV file has only 650 rows.

traceroute66 5 days ago||

99% of UK government IT makes you despair and then you get the 1% like this which are gems.

tene80i 5 days ago|

Gov.uk services are generally pretty high quality, at least from the citizen’s POV.

ifwinterco 4 days ago||

Yes one thing the UK state genuinely does well in general

ggm 4 days ago||

And, the website feedback hooks are read by the coding team. I got a meaningful response to a UX issue inside 48h.

constantcrying 4 days ago||

Why is the government doing this, this seems like a ridiculous waste.

Here in Germany private corporations provide APIs for this. Google maps straight up tells you the price at nearby stations.

Maybe the UK government should focus on things such as their crumbling infrastructure, their almost non existent GDP growth or getting rid of their knife murderer and rapist population?

noAnswer 4 days ago||

The source for the "private APIs" is the government run MTS-K.

https://www.bundeskartellamt.de/EN/Tasks/markettransparencyu...

p0pularopinion 4 days ago||

Remarkable how you can spit out such an ignorant comment and then be wrong about it

jpfromlondon 5 days ago|

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.

graemep 5 days ago||

Providing better price information makes a market work better.

jpfromlondon 5 days ago||

In the above model prices converge on a mean, reducing the potential savings for those that price really matters (the poor are the ones most likely to check existing price discovery sites), thus it's regressive - the government are either seeing it as an opportunity to marginally increase tax rake, or more likely are oblivious to the externality of the poor bearing the burden.

notahacker 4 days ago|||

That's... not how markets work. The cheap petrol stations are very much aware that they're cheaper than their neighbours already. The more expensive ones may feel some downward pressure, but mostly won't.

People who are price sensitive can discover cheaper alternatives more easily; others still won't bother

graemep 5 days ago|||

Which model? Tested how? Are the poor the most likely to check existing sites?

This is not a new sites. Its making data more available so sites and apps will have more accurate data. This is most likely to benefit those who are willing to trade convenience for lower costs.

advisedwang 4 days ago|||

Conversely, some expensive petrol stations won't be able to get away with staying so expensive.

123pie123 4 days ago|||

> this causes price convergence

aka competition

jpfromlondon 4 days ago||

coopertition

123pie123 4 days ago||

I see where you're going, but this happen now where I live. All prices are with in 2p of each other in a 2 mile radius.

but travel around 5miles and it's typically 5-9p cheaper

no way can this make it worse for me - hopefully people will travel to punish the garages.

bonsai_spool 5 days ago||

> 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...

jpfromlondon 5 days ago||

We don't assume perfect information, or rather - it exists already in an unsanctioned form for those that seek it (usually those to whom price is sensitive).

Until this we assume marginality holds true and price dispersion has a benefit in society that we unwittingly enable.