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Have you ever seen a pump in actual use 50% of the time? Even if there is a queue of traffic waiting to fill up, by the time people have parked, got out of the
by matthewowen 11y ago
Have you ever seen a pump in actual use 50% of the time? Even if there is a queue of traffic waiting to fill up, by the time people have parked, got out of the car, paid, pumped, got back in, negotiated their way past other cars (potentially blocking them in) so that someone else can get to the pump, etc I find it hard to see much more than 25% utilization even today. This would be even worse in the 20s, where payment presumably involves handing cash over to a person who probably isn't stood right by the pump.
Now I really want to go and time this process :).
- kbenson 11y agoI think 50% is a fairly good guess for pump usage for people that aren't buying other stuff. At 5 gallons a minute, that's 2-4 minutes of actual pumping for most cars/trucks, possibly larger for vehicles with larger gas tanks (note that a faster pump rate actually increases the overall revenue, even if it reduces the percentage of time spent pumping per person compared to other actions). At a busy station, I think 2-4 minutes of time to pull up to pump, pay with a credit card, and leave isn't out of the question. It is all highly variable, of course. Let me know if you ever actually test this. :)