Pump occupancy analytics: how long vehicles really spend at the pump
Pump occupancy time is the time a vehicle occupies a pump pad, from the moment it pulls in to the moment it leaves. AutoVision measures it for every pump, every hour, and shows how many sessions each average is based on.
Occupancy time is not fuelling time
Occupancy includes pulling in, the attendant's greeting, fuelling, payment and pulling out. AutoVision can see a vehicle on the pad, but it does not detect when dispensing starts or stops, so it reports occupancy time and says so everywhere it is shown. We never label occupancy as fuelling time, because an average presented that way would mislead the people relying on it.
What you get for every pump
- Completed sessions and utilisation, hour by hour.
- Average, median and 90th-percentile occupancy time, with the sample size.
- Comparison between pumps, so a slow pump or a bottleneck stands out.
- Live queue length and queue build-up against your own thresholds.
- Long occupancy alerts for vehicles that stay far longer than usual.
Decisions it supports
- Staffing: add attendants before the queue forms, not after.
- Pump allocation: steer vehicle types to the pumps that serve them fastest.
- Peak planning: see the real busiest hours, by weekday.
- Maintenance: a pump that is consistently slower than its neighbours may need attention.
Reading the numbers correctly
The median shows the typical session and the 90th percentile shows how bad the slow ones get; the average sits between them and is pulled up by a few long stays. Always check the sample size: an average of a few dozen sessions early in the day can move a lot.
The exact rules for what counts as a session are published on how AutoVision measures pump occupancy time.
Frequently asked questions
Does AutoVision measure fuelling time?
No. It measures pump occupancy time, from a vehicle arriving on the pump pad to it leaving. It cannot see when dispensing starts or ends.
Why are some very short stops excluded?
Very short detections are treated as vehicles passing through or tracking noise, not sessions. The minimum is a configurable setting and the rule is published.
What if a vehicle leaves and another arrives immediately?
They are separate sessions. AutoVision tracks each vehicle on the pad individually, although a very small number of vehicles can be split in two by tracking, which we document and bound.
Keep reading
- How we measureThe exact method behind AutoVision's pump occupancy figures: what counts as a session, how averages are calculated, what is excluded and what limits remain.
- Fuel station analyticsFuel station analytics from your existing CCTV: live pump occupancy, queues, ANPR and shop conversion. Built in Nairobi by DataFly Ltd.
- ANPR KenyaNumber plate recognition (ANPR) for Kenyan fuel stations: unique vehicle counts, pump-visit and shop links, repeat vehicles and hotlist alerts.