Research in Action
See an archive of business-friendly articles that share out findings using data housed at the Kilts Center for an audience of policymakers, business leaders, and the general public.
Research in ActionPDI: GasBuddy
Real-time and historical fuel price information plus location, brand, amenities for gas stations in the United States and Canada.
The Kilts Center provides researchers from the University of 黑料传送门 with GasBuddy data from PDI Technologies. These data provide real-time and historical fuel price information across various gas stations in the U.S. and Canada. These data also include station information: location, brand, amenities (e.g., car wash, convenience store).
Eligibility
Tenured and tenure-track faculty, PhD students, and postdocs from The University of 黑料传送门 are eligible to use these data. All users must comply with PDI Technologies鈥� data use policies included below. Please note that coauthors outside the University of 黑料传送门 may coauthor papers involving Gas Buddy, but they are prohibited from having any access to these data.
Request Access
Eligible researchers who have an active account with the Kilts Center can request access to the data by logging into the . For those who have never registered to use data from the Kilts Center, please begin by .
Years Available: 2018 through 2024.
What Is Included: GasBuddy is a popular application and website that helps users find the cheapest gasoline prices in their vicinity. Widely used in North America, it relies on user-submitted data to offer real-time fuel price information at various gas stations.
Gas Station Information: Fields include the name and location of gas stations (address, city, geographic coordinates).
Fuel Prices: Prices for different types of fuel (regular, mid-grade, premium gasoline, and diesel), including the timestamp of the last update.
Additional Attributes: Availability of other services at the gas station (e.g., car wash, convenience store).
Types of files: GasBuddy data are available as multiple files in comma-delimited format.
- Researchers must register with the Kilts Center a detailed description of each project. Each paper a researcher anticipates writing should be its own project.
- Researchers must complete an annual update and disclose any changes to their project scope, coauthors, or funding sources during the course of their research.
- Researchers may only use the data for strictly academic research projects focused on important issues of wide and general interest.
- Use of the GasBuddy data for consulting purposes of any kind, including litigation support, is strictly prohibited.
- Data must be stored only on devices and computers owned by the subscribed institution or permissible Third Party Hosting Systems. The permissible Third Party Hosting Systems must have at least one of the following information security certifications: (a) federal Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA); (b) SSAE16 SOC2; and/or (c) ISO27001 security certifications. No amount of data should ever be stored on a personal computer.
- Researchers will not disclose any personally identifiable information about any consumer panelists, or details that would permit re-identification of consumer panelists.
- Projects with the primary purpose of evaluating GasBuddy’s data-collection approach or methodologies will not be approved.
- Within 5 days of a subscription end date or deactivation, each researcher must provide all papers, complete a final report, and provide signed verification that she/he destroyed and purged all copies of the data during deactivation.
- Graduating PhD students who graduate and take a full-time, tenure-line job at an accredited academic institution may have the option to retain access to select GasBuddy data for up to five (5) years following graduation, in order to complete qualified projects.
To be eligible, PhD students must:
Twelve (12) months in advance of graduation- have a research proposal(s) approved
Six (6) months in advance of graduation
- submit an extension request to the Kilts Center
- have Kilts Center approve a working paper related to each approved project
- begin working with their new academic institution to execute a Continuing Data Access Agreement
- Researchers must submit all copies of proposed papers, reports, presentations, abstracts, dissertations, manuscripts, journal articles, and any other publication type to the Kilts Center at least 30 days prior to any public dissemination, including SSRN and submission to journals. Any distributed materials may include only limited excerpts of GasBuddy information—“limited excerpt” means such portion of the GasBuddy data that would not ordinarily substitute for a purchase of access to the GasBuddy datasets.
- Thirty (30) days after providing Kilts Center a copy of a working paper, researchers must submit such papers to the .
- Researchers are required to notify the Kilts Center of publications resulting from their work with the data, even after they have stopped using the data.
- For presentations, working papers, journal articles, dissertations, and publications, researchers must include the following disclaimers:
Researcher(s)’ own analyses calculated (or derived) based in part on data from PDI Technologies and provided by the Kilts Center for Marketing at 黑料传送门.
The conclusions drawn from the PDI Technologies data are those of the researcher(s) and do not reflect the views of PDI Technologies. PDI Technologies is not responsible for and had no role in analyzing or preparing the results reported herein.
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