TomTom US Fuel Prices - update

[Michael Quinlan]

After about 6 weeks with the Fuel Prices service I can honestly say that the service is fairly useless in New Jersey. As I pass gas stations in my travels I randomly search for prices by distance, to compare the listed fuel price with the actual price of the nearest station. I would say that the listed price is correct, or reasonably close, about 50% of the time.

But that's not how someone wanting to purchase gas would use the service. Instead, they would look for the Cheapest on route, Cheapest nearby, or Cheapest in area.

GasBuddy.com currently lists the lowest price for regular grade gas in NJ at $3.76.

TT's Fuel Prices Cheapest in area range from $3.50 to $3.58 (it only shows the lowest 24 listings, similar to POI searches). Cheapest nearby ranges from $3.60 to $3.75 (only 12 listings provided). Cheapest on route (from central NJ to northern NJ) ranges from $3.58 to $3.62 (24 listings).

With gas prices on the rise, the lowest 12-24 prices will always be from among the outdated or inaccurate entries, making the information useless.

 

[Stuie]

I find a lot of the plus services (at least for the TT One XL) very gimmicie and isnt really worth the extra coin. But honestly thats not want I wanted, I just want a good GPS which I find the One XL is.

 

[cputrdoc]

After about 6 weeks with the Fuel Prices service I can honestly say that the service is fairly useless in New Jersey. As I pass gas stations in my travels I randomly search for prices by distance, to compare the listed fuel price with the actual price of the nearest station. I would say that the listed price is correct, or reasonably close, about 50% of the time.

But that's not how someone wanting to purchase gas would use the service. Instead, they would look for the Cheapest on route, Cheapest nearby, or Cheapest in area.

GasBuddy.com currently lists the lowest price for regular grade gas in NJ at $3.76.

TT's Fuel Prices Cheapest in area range from $3.50 to $3.58 (it only shows the lowest 24 listings, similar to POI searches). Cheapest nearby ranges from $3.60 to $3.75 (only 12 listings provided). Cheapest on route (from central NJ to northern NJ) ranges from $3.58 to $3.62 (24 listings).

With gas prices on the rise, the lowest 12-24 prices will always be from among the outdated or inaccurate entries, making the information useless.

Service has not been collecting updates for the past few weeks. The service is still valuable for finding gas stations which tend to be the lowest in the area, even if the price isn't quite accurate. TomTom is aware of the problem and working on a fix.

 

[mohnkern]

Updates

I subscribed to the service this morning, and the data appears to be 17 days old, and even then, I think it's far off the mark. Gas station across the street is $4.25 for regular, and they say its $3.72.

 

[Michael Quinlan]

Service has not been collecting updates for the past few weeks. The service is still valuable for finding gas stations which tend to be the lowest in the area, even if the price isn't quite accurate. TomTom is aware of the problem and working on a fix.

I discovered this and called TomTom after posting my message. With regard to the usefulness of the service when it IS "working", I can only paraphrase what I said in another thread:

1. The data is presented without age information, so it's impossible for a user to assess the validity of the information presented
2. The fact that some listings are correct, while others are way off, indicates that the age of individual entries is not uniform, causing the data to be non-representative of current relative pricing (where can I find the lowest price today)
3. If they showed me week-old data (but all from the same day) for all nearby stations, the pricing could be way off, but the relative pricing would be similar enough that I could still find the lowest (or near lowest) price today

I'll also add that with pricing as it is now, many stations have reverted to a bygone practice of offering a discount for paying with CASH. TT's Fuel Prices has no way to take this into account, as their data is collected by analyzing credit card transactions (I believe of fleet operators, no consumers).

 

[PSJ]

My fuel service started correctly updating today.



PSJ aka Marc

 

[Michael Quinlan]

Me too. Woohoo! Now the prices shown will be less erroneous! They actually seemed pretty accurate after it started working again.