Fair Measure at the Pump: Accurate In-Tank Metering

Every day, hundreds of millions of two-wheelers, cars and commercial vehicles queue up to fill up at fuel stations; and every day, a portion of the fuel that riders and drivers pay for simply never reaches their tanks. The only volume reading that these consumers can see is the one the seller has control over. Vehicle-side instrumentation, by contrast, has never been designed to answer the very simple question of how much fuel is currently in this tank, in litres.1 This paper suggests this state of affairs is due for reconsideration. It documents fuel dispensing fraud from several countries, explains why conventional fuel gauges fail to provide a check on the pump, and proposes both a viable, low-cost solution for absolute on-vehicle metering and a path forward for research efforts that might lead to a metrology-grade implementation. It moves through a realistic example of the problem and its resolution, considers the engineering obstacles a working solution will face, and suggests ways to overcome them.