As the first year of unmanned petrol operations wraps up ACAPMA is convening a stakeholder consultation group, comprised of participants and regulators to set the roadmap for how to get unmanned sites right from a community and environmental safety perspective.

Evolving Retail Imperatives

The concept of self-service is not entirely new, particularly in diesel fuel, but its widespread adoption for petrol marks a significant change in the industry.

The move towards self-service stations, or unmanned fuel sites, is driven by a combination of factors. The rise of electric vehicles is reshaping the demand for traditional petrol stations, while the industry faces challenges in staffing and securing these establishments.

However, it has raised questions about the overall operational safety of these unmanned stations.

Safety Considerations

Without staff trained to respond quickly to incidents, the responsibility falls on remote monitoring systems and automatic shutdown protocols to manage any potential hazards.

As we witness the transformation of petrol stations into self-service operations, it’s important to consider the broader implications.

An unattended fuel site will present many of the same risks as an attended service station but there are also quite different risks, namely:
  • unattended sites do not hold cash or cigarettes so harm incidents arising from aggravated activity is minimised, and
  • unattended fuel sites present some unique risks due to the absence of workers to supervise activities or to attend to any adverse incident.

The absence of on-site workers the design and operation of an unmanned site must consider the risks and implement active controls to:

  • respond to an incident promptly and minimise harm
  • immediately call the emergency services in the event of a serious incident
  • preserve a work site at which a notifiable incident has occurred
  • facilitate an evacuation.

The fact that at an unmanned fuel site there will be a dependence on the customer to look after themselves means that sensors, remote monitoring and the activation of an on ground response team is vital to the ‘safe’ operation of an unmanned site.  The emergency response plan for an unmanned site will be very different, particularly for minor incidents, than a manned site.

Setting a Standard for the Future

ACAPMA is bringing together safety and environmental regulators along with retail majors and incident responders to explore the learnings of unmanned sites in Australia and New Zealand with a view to codifying what a “good” unmanned fuel site has in terms of facilities and operational oversight and incident response.

This consultation will be a series of online meetings commencing in the new year.  Interested stakeholders should reach out to communications@acapma.com.au to register their interest to attend.

ACAPMA

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