Gas tracking is now online
Posted May 29th, 2008 by ServiceBeacon TeamSo last night we finally put gas tracking into ServiceBeacon. This is definitely the number one enhancement request we have received over the last few months. With gas prices the way they are it really isnt a surprise! So here is a quick tour of what went online, a preview of what is still to come, and some questions for you in case you want to provide additional feedback/ideas on where we should take this.
First, here is what we have done so far:
1) Add a Fillup is located under the My Cars navigation icon.
2) When you get to the Add a Fillup screen you will be presented with a form which asks questions such as the date of fillup, your mileage at time of fillup, the fillup info itself (type of gas, how much you put in, cost per gallon/litre), where you filled up, and some extra questions about whether you missed an entry and whether you filled the tank. Filling in the form should be pretty easy assuming you have the info.
3) The info you enter in the form will then be captured below and is used to calculate things like your car’s current fuel economy.
4) Manage My Cars then captures all the costs and displays them along with total service costs.
5) One of the things we took into account is the issue of multi-currency and so we actually do break out costs based on the currency of the country where the expenditure (either from a fillup or maintenance) was made. So if you are Canadian and most of your fillups are in Canada but then you go on a roadtrip to the US and fillup there, ServiceBeacon will capture your Canadian fillups in Canadian dollars and will separately capture (and display) your fillups while you roadtrip to the States. We thought this was a good way to handle what would otherwise be a messy currency conversion issue.
6) When you enter a fillup, the information is used to update your car’s mileage within ServiceBeacon. This should help make our estimates even more accurate.
Next, here is what is still to come: The big thing on the list is a mobile version of the fillup system. That way you can enter the info while you are actually in your car/at the pump. It will save you from having to bring the info home if you don’t want to. The mobile version is already being worked on and we hope to have it up and running in the next few weeks so look for more on that soon.
So here are the questions we have:
1) What sort of reports would you like as it relates to your fillups and fuel economy?
2) Are you interested in seeing gas prices as entered by other users? Assuming enough of you start using this feature on a regular basis (especially once the mobile version gets released) this sort of info may become more and more useful for things like finding the best gas prices.
Let us know! As many of you have contacted us before, you know we always take your requests and feedback seriously so we want to hear from you. And of course if you run into any issues with the gas tracking features we just put online, please let us know about them as well.
We appreciate it and look forward to hearing from you!
Team SB
May 29th, 2008 at 9:21 am
I would like to see the MPG of other users as well as prices. Esp if we can break that down by area so I know what other people in my town are paying.
Or if we could break it down by car model, that would be even cooler. As for the mobile version, please add a SMS feature for those of us who don’t have internet on our cell phones. A few other sites do this with Twitter but at least one I know of has their own “quick” text number set up for this purpose. Thanks!
June 2nd, 2008 at 4:29 pm
I would like to see average mpg rather than current fill up (or better yet, both if possible).
Ability to convert from L/100km to Imperial mpg would also be a big plus for Canadian users. Some of us Old Guys still like to see mpg, but NOT in US gallons.
Thanks
June 11th, 2008 at 12:48 pm
I’m glad to hear the mobile flavor is fast approaching — without it I wouldn’t use the feature. An SMS type input feature may work well too — Twitter type input where a msg with specific tags/labels can be used to update data: CarCode M:133,354 G:12.52 P:4.55
Please pay close attention to the most efficient UI for the mobile page. I tend to start pumping the gas, use my phone to get to the mobile page, start entering the data while the gas is pumping — so the first data elements available for me are: Vehicle, Price, Gallons, and then when I get back in the car I enter the mileage. This is most efficient for me and it fits my past cycle of only resetting the trip meter AFTER I’ve pumped the gas (old habits are hard to break).
For reports: MPG of the last tank, Avg MPG, While not used often a graph that shows mileage over time, MPG over time, and Gas Price over time is interesting. Take a clue from Google Analytics and use trending info as well with visual indicators - MPG compared to last tank (up/down, how much).
Gas Price info is becoming more interesting, but I bet that anyone really interested in shopping for the best price may have found GasBuddy (I haven’t used it, I just prefer to gripe about my local price and pay attention to each station i pass). So consider integrating their service into yours. IF you are going to try to track gas price — have the user indicate the grade of gas being pumped, maybe set this a default that can be changed if needed. I always pump Regular gas (is that 87 octane). But a basic look up gas prices by area (zip code based maybe, but I don’t always fill up in the same areas) may be used.
that’s all for now!!!
June 20th, 2008 at 4:32 pm
This is an excellent feature to implement and I look forward to trying it out. I agree with everything said in the comments above, especially the ability to see other user’s mileages so direct comparisons can be made. I use TorontoGasPrices.com and my gripe with them is that although they allow L/100km, they use Imperial gallons for MPG and not American gallons. That makes it very difficult to compare to American mileages, and Canadians who use that standard. I would like to see all three units used, and maybe even km/L, though I don’t know anyone who uses that.
June 23rd, 2008 at 8:05 pm
A lot of people, including myself use mymilemarker.com to track gas mileage. It’d be great if you guys could combine the two so that changes made at one site appear here at servicebeacon.
June 25th, 2008 at 11:59 pm
I use http://www.mpgtune.com to track my gas mileage. It’s definitely a good idea to use odometer reading from fill-up to update car’s mileage, good thinking here!
July 5th, 2008 at 5:03 pm
Well, I thought this was a nice feature, until I actually went to use it. Reading the blog, I was impressed that the developers took into account different currencies for cross-border fillups, but they missed a very critical feature, namely the ability to chose the units of information entered for a fillup. I live in Canada, I own two vehicles imported from the USA which are in miles. When I register the vehicle, I have to chose miles since that’s what my odometer reads, but when I fill up, I locally pay in Canadian dollars and litres. If it was merely the need to convert the odometer reading to kilometers and register the vehicle initally with kilometers, then that wouldn’t be a problem. The problem is that I also travel to the USA a lot and have as many fillups with US dollars and gallons on the receipt. But to use the SB Fillup feature, I would need to convert either all the American or all the Canadian receipts, depending on how I originally registered my vehicle with SB.
I’m sure I’m not the only Canadian with an American car either, especially with the recent rash of imports from the south due to parity of the dollar.
SB, PLEASE enable the ability for me to choose my units when I enter a fillup, otherwise this feature is absolutely useless for me. I might as well stick to a spreadsheet on my desktop.
Thanks for listening.
July 6th, 2008 at 11:53 am
In speaking with the developer, I was informed that the feature I ranted about above was indeed present on the gas fillup page. I just didn’t see it. Doh. I retract my earlier comment and having now used the feature, it’s functional and I really like it.
July 10th, 2008 at 5:26 pm
The gas mileage and MPG is great, a very welcome addition. I have entered all my fill-ups todate. Now I want to see some useful reports of my data.