The price of gas may have gone down, but more people are out of work – so incidences of gas theft are probably as common now as they were a year ago, when gas was $4 a gallon in the US (and $7+ in Israel!). According to insurance industry officials, about 4% of the diesel fuel on tanker trucks is stolen every year. I’m sure it’s at least as bad elsewhere.

To prevent such theft, Israel’s Ituran (they have an American site as well), which makes vehicle theft tracking systems, among other things, has come out with a gas-tracking system! According to the company, the device, developed at a cost of about $100,000, was “designed to provide an electronic solution to prevent thieves from stealing fuel, warning them off while they are in the act, without causing any potential risk” of fire or explosion in the gas tank (apparently it was an issue from an engineering point of view, to place an electronic detector next to or in the gas tank).

One side of the device is active only when the vehicle is turned off, and its sensors read the amount of fuel in the tank; the other side is connected to the vehicle’s theft alert system. If the fuel level begins to go down while the vehicle is parked, the warning system tracks down the owner – just like it would if the vehicle were being stolen. The device can also be programmed to check fuel levels while the vehicle is turned on ensuring that the fuel depletion rate is correct (in the case of trucks, the company says, that’s about 1 liter of diesel fuel every two or three kilometers). Why? Because apparently lots of drivers are in on this fuel theft scam – instead of “gassing up” at a service station, they “gas out” at secret, hidden gas tanks at the side of roads, and sell the fuel later!

According to Ituran’s figures, a company with a fleet with 15 trucks, each of which loses 20-30 liters of fuel a week to “shrinkage,” can save up to 3 million shekels a year ($750,000!). Even assuming the cost of fuel in Israel is double, it’s still a great investment for U.S. fleets as well.

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 30th, 2009 at 11:55 am and is filed under communication, hi-tech. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.