Issue

The problem that plagues most companies that have a fleet of vehicles is fuel theft. Whether it is from employees who abuse the position and situation, whether it is from a third party. Our client faced this problem on both sides and had to solve the problem of fuel theft by both employees and third parties who broke into his lot at night, ransacked the tanks and stole fuel. Fuel level probes are nothing new on the market, but the problem our client had was much deeper and more complex, so we had to create a complete system that protects the fleet from fuel theft.

The solution

The solution included fuel level measurement, GPS tracking and information transfer to the system, as well as a system that will alert locally if theft occurs. We created a system that controlled the opening of the tank cap, the pouring and the ejection of fuel. Opening the lid of the tank could only be accessed by persons with authorized RFID cards and if the lid was opened without authorization, the system would send a signal to the alarm siren, which would be activated on the vehicle itself, after an initial silent wait. This is the system that forced the employees to authenticate themselves with their card before opening the tank in order to know exactly who is pouring or dispensing fuel, but also the system was used to activate the siren when third parties try to open the tank cap without authorization, and disperse them from the scene. Given that the area on which these vehicles operate is very large and that the night guards cannot cover the entire area, the GPS device inside the vehicle, in addition to controlling the alarm siren, also sent a message to the guard's terminal in order to activate the central siren with a much stronger power. Although for some this seems like a complete solution for protecting the vehicle against fuel theft, our engineers have devised another additional way of protection. This method involved recognition of a drop in the fuel level if the tank is punctured by a thief. Here, the probe for measuring the fuel level did its job, which with an additional controller monitored the accelerated drop in the fuel level and would trigger the alarm system in the same way as the previously described opening of the tank cap. Also, if the probe wires are cut, the alarm system also reacts and the siren is activated.

Benefits

As you can imagine, the benefits were great. By controlling the filling and dispensing of fuel by the employees, our client achieved great savings. Also, the alarm system prevented several thefts, and they became less and less frequent, and eventually the thieves gave up. Our customer had these problems for years, and they were resolved just a few months after installing our fuel control alarm system.