BOSTON -- GasBuddy has launched a new Trips feature, which pinpoints exactly where and when users have been guilty of fuel-inefficient driving.
With the new Trips feature on the GasBuddy app, drivers get an assessment of their trips based on a three-tier rating system: great, not bad or not great. The summaries include the date, time and distance, and they map out when and where during the trip a poor driving habit occurred, whether it be speeding or hard braking or acceleration.
According to the U.S. Department of Energy, aggressive driving such as speeding, rapid acceleration and braking is the quickest way to waste gas and can lower gas mileage by as much as 40%.
“Our goal is to help people make smart decisions when they’re on the road, from providing real-time gas prices to which stations have the cleanest restrooms,” said Levi Hamilton, head of product, consumer experience for GasBuddy. “The new Trips feature provides motorists with transparency on how they’re driving and, in turn, impacting their wallets. In our initial testing, we found that Trips is already improving our users' driving habits and helping them save more money.”
During beta testing, GasBuddy analyzed more than 140,000 individual trips and found that a majority of trips (78%) fell into the “not bad” and “not great” buckets, meaning there are instances of fuel-guzzling habits, with hard braking being the No. 1 culprit.
“The manner in which a car is driven will impact its fuel economy tremendously and, unfortunately, most drivers don’t even realize the way they are driving is causing them to make more visits to the pump,” said Patrick DeHaan, head petroleum analyst for GasBuddy. “Gas prices fluctuate constantly; that is something we can’t control. But what you can control is making appropriate changes that can save you between 13 cents and 89 cents a gallon.”
Boston-based GasBuddy manages an app that crowdsources firsthand consumer information on c-stores to help drivers find the best-rated gas station nearby. GasBuddy has data available for more than 140,000 gas stations in the United States, Canada and Australia. The company also offers GasBuddy Business Pages, a software-as-a-service for retailers and fuel marketers. The tool allows fuel marketers and retailers to maintain station information, manage their brand and promote to their target audience through GasBuddy.
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