Trouble on the forecourt

Bilking. No, not a misspelling, but rather the unusual term applied to an all-too-familiar problem within the petrol retailing environment – people driving off forecourts having failed to pay for their petrol or diesel.

The majority of today’s service stations do far more than merely sell petrol, of course. Many are something of a neighbourhood asset, providing everything from newspapers and magazines through to snacks, drinks and cash dispensers. Constant pressure on petrol prices, though, has made the theft of fuel an attractive option for the less scrupulous. Of late, such theft has been costing the industry in a big way.

Look at the facts. Last year, criminal activity at petrol stations bled retailers dry to the tune of £50 million. With the exception of credit card fraud, which accounted for a cool £30 million of that sum, the biggest single element comprising the loss was drive-off theft.

Customers filling up and driving away without producing their wallet – knowingly or otherwise – cost an estimated £15 million. The remainder is picked up by burglary, vandalism and petty theft.

Although the number of petrol stations across the country has declined (from 15,000 in 1997 to today’s 11,000), losses remain worryingly high. Also of major concern, in particular to members of the police service, is the fact that those drivers departing without paying may well be responsible for more serious acts of criminality elsewhere.

BOSS: targeting the criminals

Central to the fight against bilking and forecourt crime in general is the British Oil Security Syndicate (BOSS). Formed in 1991, BOSS is an independent organisation directed and funded by the leading oil companies – including Esso, BP, Shell, Texaco and Total – and headed up by executive director Kevin Eastwood and chairman Simon Palmer.

BOSS is supported by (among others) the Petrol Retailers Association, the UK Petroleum Industry Association, the Association of Chief Police Officers and the Association of Payment Clearing Services. The organisation currently represents over 4,000 petrol station retailers employing more than 60,000 people

BOSS’ flagship scheme to combat forecourt crime is Forecourt Watch. More than 70 initiatives are in place across the UK, whereupon petrol retailers are encouraged to inform the police and their neighbouring petrol stations of any criminal activity in the area such that action might be taken before crimes are committed elsewhere. Pretty much a Neighbourhood Watch for petrol stations.

The latest scheme has just been launched in the Stratford district of south Warwickshire, and involves 15 separate service stations. Each petrol retailer in the new scheme will receive staff training, in addition to dedicated information packs for managing and recording crime episodes. Stickers are also displayed at prominent locations across station forecourts (including the fuel pumps themselves) so that would-be thieves know they’re being watched.

In the same way that criminals’ methods are becoming more sophisticated, petrol retailers are now being required to deploy ever-more intelligent systems to combat them. Arguably the most innovative installations are those that use what is a relatively well-known technology but one that’s new to this environment – Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR). The innovation is not so much to do with the technology itself, rather its application – namely linking it to a comprehensive database of previous offenders’ vehicles.

The scenario is simple. A car drives onto the station forecourt. It’s number plate is then recorded. This data from the camera(s) is fed back into a central computer which then checks the number against the database. If a match is found, the cashier on site is alerted and can take the appropriate action.

Putting theory into practice

Theory is wonderful, of course, but in one area of the UK – namely West Yorkshire – it has been put to the test… and has proven to be successful. A pilot ANPR-based scheme in central Bradford was installed on a forecourt for Sainsbury’s with the specific objective of cracking down on bilking. In trials, the system produced an average of six alert messages per day. In other words, that’s six drive-off thefts prevented per day, with the associated savings in cost to the retailer. Authority figures may well say that such schemes simply displace habitual non-payers to target other, more vulnerable petrol stations. However, it might then drive those retailers to adopt a similar solution, which is an excellent spin-off effect.

Certainly, Geoff Dodd – the chief superintendent behind the Bradford project – is in no doubt about such schemes. “The forecourt scheme is primarily a crime reduction tool designed to cut crime, and in particular cut down on drivers making off without paying for fuel,” he told SMT. “The knock-on effect is that it will also help in the detection of such crimes, and act as a valuable source of intelligence to the police. A large number of criminals use vehicles which they hope will not be traced back to them. Many of those vehicles may have stolen number plates, or might even be stolen themselves. This scheme will alert cashiers when and if that is in fact the case.”

A similar installation was recently completed for Esso at Milton Keynes, again in partnership with the local police. The anti-crime mechanism was the same. The computer identifies the car registration number from pictures produced by the ANPR-enabled cameras, and checks this against the police database. If there’s a match, an alarm sounds at the kiosk, the screen on the monitor freezes showing the picture, the registration number in the database and the prior incident(s) involving that vehicle. All of this happens in a couple of seconds. The member of staff on site then has the option of not authorising the pump without pre-payment and/or calling the police.

In a trial on a further site, the results were particularly interesting. Several car ‘owners’ that had previously refuelled and driven off without paying had returned. When confronted, however, they appeared oblivious and/or ashamed at what they’d done, and promptly paid up!

In an eight-week trial period, the net result was a cool £2,000 in additional revenue. The significance of that sum wasn’t lost on the client, who had paid only £6,000 to have the dedicated security system installed. Within two months, then, clear inroads had already been made in paying for the initial system cost.

A Forecourt Watch scheme introduced in north east Coventry with the assistance of the West Midlands Police has resulted in a 60% reduction in forecourt crime, to the obvious delight of detective chief inspector Tim Godwin. “Not only is this a hugely positive result for the retailers,” said Godwin, “but it also frees up valuable police time to deal with other urgent tasks. Criminals in the area now know that forecourts are no longer an easy target and we hope to re-enforce this message as more and more retailers join the scheme.”

Mindful of civil liberties

Of course, such technologies aren’t to everybody’s liking. There are indeed issues regarding both civil liberties and Data Protection. The use of ANPR on forecourts to prevent bilking has led to calls that it should be deployed for gathering further criminal intelligence (to catch those drivers who have neglected to pay their road tax or insurance, for example). You can almost hear the civil liberties groups crying foul as we speak!

In this regard, it’s important to stress that the police database isn’t accessible by the garage personnel, as their system is fully automated. During the night, the service station computer – which is connected to a dedicated telephone line – dials the police computer in the Forecourt Crime Unit and automatically uploads the day’s changes. At the same time it downloads the day’s activations for the police’s evidential purposes.

While bilking will inevitably be the cornerstone of any such set-up, the database also holds those registration numbers where the owners may be linked to persons that claim an inability to pay, who are using stolen number plates or driving a vehicle that isn’t theirs and shouldn’t be in their possession.

Potentially, at least, there’s also an opportunity to tie-in a given vehicle with cheque and credit card fraud. Knowing that there may be a propensity towards criminal activity will offer the cashier a chance to do something about a situation before it arises.

The secret’s in the database

Since the first ANPR systems were used on a major scale to secure the Capital’s ‘Ring of Steel’, the technology has become de rigeur. More importantly, perhaps, it’s now more reliable. The opportunity to link ANPR with software that denotes unusual or suspicious behaviour is a very real possibility.

That said, the secret for security managers perhaps lies rather more with the database than the actual technology capturing and recording the images. The opportunity afforded by the possibility of sharing a database of ‘bilkers’ across the entire petrol and diesel retail community is both immense and tangible. Far from being ‘vapourware’, it’s here. And it’s now.