Petroleum Self Service

Self service vending has developed considerably since the first primitive oil well of Edwin Drake was drilled to a depth of 69 ft. at Titusville, Pennsylvania in 1859. At that time dispensing was in cans or barrels and indeed it was mainly paraffin oil and not petrol which was used. Even up to the founding of the Royal Dutch Shell Group 26 years later in 1885 when a tobacco planter called Jans Zijlker struck oil in the middle of an Indonesian jungle and named his Company Royal Dutch, paraffin was basically the commodity in demand for lighting purposes.

Self service from 1885 until 1910 was common practice for the early autocarists who bought their two gallon cans of Pratts motor spirit from oil shops, grocers or local motor car and cycle works and filled their own vehicles.

Petrol itself has developed considerably over the years as has the equipment for measuring and dispensing it. One of the major break throughs in the development of petrol was the introduction, in minute quantities, of tetra-ethyl lead to gasoline by Charles Kettering at the beginning of the 20th century. This was to overcome detonation and pinking and allow the use of higher compression ratios and higher revs in car engines. Similarly one of the major changes in the dispensing of petrol came to this country by the introduction of the electric motor to the petrol pump in 1931 and later the introduction of Blenders and self service equipment at Plymouth in Easter 1963.

Since then self service equipment has evolved rapidly although the acceptance by the public and licensing authorities has not been quite so pronounced. The introduction in 1968 of the new model code which gave some guide lines for pre and post payment requirements has given momentum to the recent escalation of self service sites. Also during the period from 1963 to 1968 there were a number of pilot sites operating in the more densely populated areas in England which has helped to bring about the acceptance of this type of dispensing in these areas by the general motoring public, and this too has had an effect on the recent rapid growth of self service.

Acceptance of this type of petrol vending varies from area to area depending on a great deal of variables and the Oil Company research teams are only now beginning to tabulate these variables with any degree of accuracy. We are told that one of the major factors is the sheer economics of operating the present type of attended sites. However, economics do not really affect the public's attitude to buying petrol as has been proven with various types of cut

Presented by O. B. Rankin, Esq., General Manager, Tokheim Corporation, U.K. Division,

at the

General Meeting of the Scottish Branch

price schemes and trading stamp systems in the past which did, for a limited period of time, increase sales, but on the long term simply reduce profitability and bring the sales level back into balance. Irrespective of the economics of self service vending the motoring public in Scotland, Wales and the South West of England are much more reluctant to purchase petrol at self service sites, which is no doubt much to the distress of at least one Oil Company who, in the last year, have been involved in a massive self service programme in Scotland.

It does certainly appear that subject to acceptance by the customer and a minimum sales volume of at least 400,000 gallons per annum self service vending can be more profitable in comparison to the conventional means of dispensing petrol. Therefore, the Oil Companies, as well as the equipment manufacturers, have been promoting the use of self service equipment over the past two years where possible.

Since 1968 self service vending has accelerated to such an extent that there are currently over 1,000 sites on either pre or post payment systems which is between 2 % and 3 % of petrol outlets. Current production of this type of equipment represents more than 50% of the total production ?f forecourt pumps so we can expect, if this trend contmues, that at least half the Filling Stations in Britain will be operating on the self service sometime between 1975 and 1980.

There are basically, as you know, four different types of self service.

1. What is known as the poor man's self service which has conventional pumps and an attendant on the forecourt with a cash bag. .

2. self service where the customer pays in or. notes or multiples of each prior to dispensing hiS requirements and the pump automatically stops at the value prepaid.

3. Post payment self service where a customer takes the amount required and then pays afterwards. 4. Credit card self service where no cash transaction takes place, but the quantity taken is recorded on a punch tape or magnetic tape and is invoiced at a later date or for that matter pre paid and credited after each transaction.

Taking the first of these four systems, the poor man's self service, has been tried out in many areas, especially the south west, and it is a relatively straight forward means of dispensing petrol. The customer simply serves himself using conventional pumps and at the end of the transaction the forecourt attendant collects the money accordingly. The main danger with this system is that at busy periods the attendant cannot keep his eye on all the pumps, and there is nothing to stop a customer from zeroising half way through a delivery and quickly switching on again, in this way obtaining a quantity of petrol without it being recorded at the time of payment. We developed a key control system to overcome this problem which was tried out at Queenslie

Service Station on the Edinburgh Road. The system proved to be fool proof, and is now to be tested in the Birmingham area where self service is more acceptable to the public, and for that mater site tenants, managers, staff, etc.

The second system I mentioned is pre payment. This has considerable advantages over other systems. The main reason why it is not so extensively used at present is the inherent trouble that has been found with the note validator and coin acceptor units. However, after more than 2! years of development a few extremely reliable systems are now emerging on the market. One of these is the Automation

Devices system that will be demonstrated after this discussion, and another one which is a much more simplified version which we ourselves are about to produce. Our system will accept multiples of 10 new pence, 50 new pence and £1 notes to the value of approximately £3.50 and has a small cabinet adjacent to each pump which will accept the customer's money and transfer the appropriate credit to the pump. This is not a highly sophisticated system and further, does not appear to have any of the inherent problems that other systems were bugged with. For instance the coin acceptor unit is not easily jammed as has been found possible with the coin units fitted directly to petrol pumps. When these units are jammed, free petrol can, of course, be dispensed all night or until somebody of authority notices it. Also our note validator does not reject Bank of England £1 notes to the extent other systems do, and subsequently we do not have to blame the inconsistancies of the printing of the £1 note to the same extent. Pre-payment can can also be linked into post payment systems as well as the kiosk method, which again will be demonstrated later.

The third system I mentioned is post payment, and apparently the most popular type of self service at present. The systems used are either of the ticket printer type, electronic readout type, or electro mechanical type, or combinations of both. Some of the ticket printer systems available are extremely good, and are not plagued with problems, however, if there is any fault on the printmechanism or the memory section of the equipment it Immediately affects all the pumps in the forecourt and can lead to complete shutdown. Secondly, the equipment is extremely complex, and is well beyond the capabilities of the average pump fitter to understand or for that matter beYond the capabilities of highly skilled technicians unless they have had some indoctrination on the particular circuitry. Electronic cash read outs or combined cash and quantity read .outs suffer from the same problems as previously mentIOned with the exception that there is no printing mechanism. But, they are still complex and not as reliable as sometimes made out to be.

The electro mechanical counter type have also had their problems which have generally been related to the very high count rate that they have to cope with, that is upwards of 2,000 counts per minute. As a result they have generally been superseded by electronic systems which do not have this limitation. We have managed to overcome the high count rate with our very simple 402 A.F.C. post payment units, which again will be demonstrated later. As a result of our being able to reduce the count rate to approximately 600 counts per minute we have been able to produce an extremely accurate and inexpensive system which, when connected to the second generation of Blending Pumps, brings this type of post paymp.nt into the correct perspective.

The fourth type of self service is the credit card system which is even more complex than the previous three types and is not, at present, generally used in this country. All these systems were on show at our Exhibition held in

Holland last November which was the first of its kind in

Europe and by far the largest and most comprehensive

Exhibition of its type to be held to date. For obvious reasons credit card systems are not popular in this country and, therefore, I will not expand further on this subject, but am more than willing to discuss any queries or questions you may have regarding it later.

I think over the next five years we are going to see a continuing change in petrol vending with entirely new systems appearing on the market. We already have the Tokheim Westinghouse system of post payment, which does not have a computer in the pump at all but relies entirely on an electronic computer to control the blending ratio and record the value and quantity ill petrol dispensed in the pump as well as in the console. This is obviously a system which lends itself to considerable development and is particularly attractive to the marketing people who can visualise all sorts of permutations of forecourt design. I also .think that as pre payment units are becoming more dependable and much simplified this will be used in ever increasing quantities especially where a 24 hour service is required. From the customer's point of view it is probably the most acceptable way of buying petrol as he does not have to wait at the kiosk to pay for the petrol that he has just received, nor does he have to move away from his vehicle to any great extent to pay as the small acceptor unit can be placed next to each pump.

We will, of course, also see the continued use of the conventional way of dispensing petrol for many years to come as there is a wide scope for the family concern or composite type of garage offering good service with personal attention, something that is always welcome but is becoming increasingly scarce.

From a marketing view self service vending is bound to be here for many years to come, and it is also bound to increase in proportion to the total volume of petrol dispensers. The acceptance of serve yourself in the grocery and commodity field has proven without doubt that this trend is controlling the future pattern of purchasing by the general public. Experience has also proven that given a relatively high volume of sales, self service vending is more economical than the attendant service.