Study of Factors Determining Fuel Sale at Gas Stations : A Case Study of Nakhon Ratchasima Province

Abstract

The objective of this research to develop models for fuel sale of a gas station and proportion of fuel sale to various vehicle types in order to estimate vehicle kilometers of travel. This study randomly selected 31 gas stations in Nakhon Ratchasima province. The fuel sale models were developed using multiple linear regression to find a relationship between fuel sale of a gas station with physical conditions, the location vehicles passing station. The final models have coefficient of determinant (R2) of 0.512 and 0.280 for gasoline and diesel groups, respectively. Factors influencing gasoline sale of a gas station include the number of gasoline nozzles, the distance from the gas station to CBD and road density. For diesel group, factors include the distance from the gas station to CBD and the percentage of heavy vehicle passing gas stations. For the proportion of fuel sale to various vehicle types, multinomial logit models were developed. The final models have likelihood ratio index (ρ2) of 0.290 and 0.405 for gasoline and diesel, respectively. The benefit of the study is to estimate vehicle kilometer of travel (VKT) for various vehicle types in Nakhon Ratchasima which will be useful for transport-related energy planning in the future.