The petrol station – a hot spot along the road

Abstract

The increased travelling of today makes nodes along travelling routes more and more important. This is very much the case of petrol stations. They constitute important nodes in the road network, filling up thirsty fuel tanks and hungry stomachs, guiding road users and providing vehicle-services. In this thesis the role of the petrol station for road users was investigated in order to find out if the petrol station was a potential hot spot. We performed an ethnographic field study at a petrol station and found that a great number of visitor activities took place at the petrol station. These indicated the significance of the petrol station for road users. There were much more taking place than traditional car maintenance. We found that the petrol stations prerequisites for becoming a digital hotspot were favourable. Aspects of interest to consider for IT implementation were also identified. The ability of the petrol station to provide timely information about e.g. the vicinity of the petrol station and road related information are examples of such aspects. The possibility to support people that travel a lot in their work and people having a journey break are further aspects of interest for a petrol station hot spot. Design suggestions intended to visualise ideas on how these aspects could be taken advantage of in a petrol station hot spot were presented.