Methodology

PetrolPal data sources

PetrolPal combines official UK fuel price data, open EV charger data, routing engines and public geographic boundaries into one driver-facing comparison tool.

Fuel sync

10 min

Target update cadence

Fresh window

14 days

Used for headlines

Coverage

7,000+

UK forecourts tracked

Regions

12

UK map areas

Petrol and diesel prices

UK Government Fuel Finder feed

PetrolPal uses the CMA-mandated forecourt price feed published by participating UK fuel retailers. This powers station search, price statistics, regional comparisons and embeddable price widgets.

EV charger locations

Open Charge Map

EV charger locations and connector details come from Open Charge Map. PetrolPal presents this alongside fuel prices so mixed fuel and EV households can plan from one place.

Route planning

OSRM routing

Route geometry and driving distances are calculated with OSRM. PetrolPal combines route distance with vehicle settings and live prices to plan practical fuel stops.

Regional map shapes

County and unitary authority boundaries

Regional map boundaries use county and unitary authority geometry with Crown copyright attribution under the Open Government Licence v3. PetrolPal currently colours these areas by their parent region.

Freshness policy

PetrolPal syncs fuel data frequently and records the latest price available for each station. If a price is old, it can still be visible in source records, but we exclude stale values from headline averages, cheapest-region claims and regional map colours where freshness affects the answer.

This keeps the public map useful for drivers today and makes our press, regional and developer data easier to cite responsibly.

Citation rules

  • Headline fuel prices exclude values older than 14 days where freshness matters.
  • National and regional averages are recalculated from the latest synced station records.
  • Regional map colours show PetrolPal region-level prices, not individual county-level prices yet.
  • Widgets and JSON endpoints should be attributed to PetrolPal when republished.

Need reusable data?

Use PetrolPal widgets and JSON endpoints for articles, dashboards and local fuel pages.

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