Does your service station near you still have petrol or diesel or is it completely dry?
Many of you have asked yourself this question over the past few days, due to shortages at the pump due to strikes at refineries and fuel depots.
According to the Ministry of Energy Transition, around 30% of points of sale in France were still out of at least one product on Wednesday.
To find out which it is, several maps are available on the Internet and in particular on news sites (including that of Le Parisien).
But they are not all based on the same sources, and each of them has limits - more or less strong.
We take stock, by type of card.
I. Participatory maps
What do they show?
For each service station, these cards indicate whether it is out of one or more fuels.
If petrol or diesel is available, its price per liter is displayed.
Where do they come from?
At the base, government data (see below) is used.
But above all, these maps are enriched with feedback from motorists.
Anyone can report a shortage… or a restock.
"Each time there is a first report for a station, it appears, and we also display the number of confirmations by other users and the date of the most recent confirmation", explains Parisian Daniel Pham, founder of the Diesel Now application.
Where are they available?
Several websites and applications, such as mon-essence.fr or Gasoil Now, offer them free and open access.
Gasoil Now went from around 70,000 unique users per day before the crisis to… 1.4 million on 12 October.
Some news sites, such as Le Parisien, reuse data from one of these platforms to reproduce their own interactive maps.
The Gasoil Now application interface.
DR
What are its limits ?
As indicated above, these maps are mainly based on feedback from motorists.
They rely on the responsiveness of the people who consult and use them.
By nature, they cannot therefore claim to be completely exhaustive or up-to-date in real time.
“We cannot promise that the data is 100% reliable and no one could, that would be a dream!
“, recognizes Daniel Pham.
II.
The government map
What does it show?
For each service station in France, it displays the price per liter of each fuel available and mentions when one of them is out of stock.
Where is she from ?
Information provided by each service station manager, on “a specialized and secure interface or on a voice server”, indicates the government.
This declaration is - in theory - obligatory by ministerial decree for any point of sale having sold at least 500 cubic meters of fuel.
Where is it available?
Directly on the website www.prix-carburants.gouv.fr.
This data is also collected by certain information sites, which use it to produce their own interactive maps.
Read also“Even at 5 euros per litre, I don’t care”: are service stations taking advantage of the shortage?
What are its limits ?
Chief among them is that the data is often… far from up-to-date.
According to our calculations, about 4 out of 10 stations have not been updated on the interface for at least a week.
At Carrefour Contact in Gracay (Cher), for example, the prices displayed for diesel and for unleaded 95 or 98 date from August 28, 2022. Prices have changed in the meantime, and it is possible that at least l one of these fuels is now unavailable.
Several information sites, such as that of Le Monde, have warned their readers about this big bias and even indicate when the last update dates from.
III.
The Total map
What does it show?
The Total network comprises approximately 4,000 service stations, out of a total of 12,000 in France.
For each of them, but also for those located in neighboring countries (Germany, Belgium, Italy, Netherlands, United Kingdom, etc.), this map shows the price of the fuels available, those of them which are out of stock, and the date of update.
Where is she from ?
Information provided by the managers of the Total stations.
Where is it available?
On the site of the oil group.
What are its limits ?
In addition to the fact that the information available is not necessarily good at the moment T since the update is not immediate, this map therefore only presents about a third of the total number of stations in France.