Motorists driven to cheap fuel site

11 August 2005

AMSTERDAM — A website offering Dutch motorists a comparison of the prices at petrol stations in their region has had one million visitors in two days.

Car leasing company Athlon in Almere set up the site and says the difference in fuel prices can be as high as 12 cents per litre, newspaper ‘De Telegraaf’ reported on Thursday.

The comparison site can be accessed by its own url or via a flashing banner for “Goedkoper tanken!” on Athlon’s main site. Users fill in the desired postcode and opt for information on stations up to 1, 5, 10, 15 or 25 kilometres away.

An average of 4,000 people a minute have been using the site since it was launched at the start of the week.

Athlon has 70,000 lease cars on the road and it compares the petrol prices using the information from the drivers of their lease cars.

“The drivers of our cars travel everywhere. They pay with a card that gives our office a daily insight into the price for litre. It is up-to-date and accurate information. We are not dependent on petrol station owners or volunteers to gather the data,” Athlon commercial director Richard Sikkel of Athlon told the newspaper.

Motorists organisation ANWB and vehicle industry lobby Bovag support the initiative.

Most petrol stations have not noticed any impact from the site, but some station owners have reacted angrily to the website, the newspaper said. In some cases drivers of Athlon cars have been refused service.

A search for the best prices for a litre of Euro 95 within five kilometres of Expatica’s head office on the Kruislaan in Amsterdam (postcode 1098) produced 20 results with prices ranging from EUR 1.32 to EUR 1.43 per litre.

The top five on Thursday were:

Makro Amsterdam, De Flinesstraat 9 1099CA: EUR 1.32, 8 August – 3.04 km
A.M. Hammerstein, Diemerpolderweg 2 1113HJ: EUR 1.36, 7 August – 3.96 km
SHELL, Europaboulevard 24 1083AD: EUR 1.36, 7 August – 4.77 km
DGV Exploitatie B.V., Muiderstraatweg 59 1111PT: EUR 1.37, 8 August – 3.01 km
L van Vliet B.V., Hamerstraat 16 1021JV: EUR 1.37, 8 August – 4.24 km

Subject: Dutch news