Petrol Pulse

South Africans know the monthly ritual all too well: you wake up on the first Wednesday, switch on the radio and brace for the announcement from the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy (DMRE). Prices for 95 ULP, 93 ULP and diesel leap up or down seemingly arbitrarily, and you scramble to fill up before the increase hits. I decided there had to be a better way to stay informed.

Petrol Pulse is my answer – a web application that tracks official DMRE data in real‑time, shows inland versus coastal prices, plots historical trends and lets you estimate your next fill‑up or road trip. If Leaf Peek taught me about computer vision and Easy Percentages scratched my itch for neat little utilities, this project channels my frustration as a driver into something useful. Here’s the story behind it and why I think it matters.

Why build a fuel price tracker?

My annoyance with petrol prices wasn’t just about money. It was about transparency. Fuel cost hikes in South Africa happen monthly and are often only announced on the day they take effect. Until now, the options were to check news sites manually, rely on rumours at the pump or download yet another app that would clutter my phone with notifications. I wanted a cleaner alternative – a site you could bookmark, trust and even subscribe to if you wanted alerts.

Petrol Pulse also emerged from a fascination with how official datasets can be repurposed for everyday life. The DMRE publishes regulated fuel prices each month, but they’re buried in government gazettes. By ingesting that data, normalising it and exposing it via a friendly interface, I realised I could build something that felt like a public service.

How Petrol Pulse works

The platform has three pillars: current prices, a history browser and a calculator. Each part is powered by official data and a little bit of user‑friendly design.

1) Real‑time prices and alerts

The landing page displays the latest inland and coastal prices for 95 ULP, 93 ULP and diesel, along with a small spark‑line preview of trends. Because the DMRE updates prices on the first Wednesday of every month, the backend checks for new gazettes and publishes them as soon as they’re available. When there’s an adjustment, the site automatically sends out email alerts to everyone who has subscribed – no mobile app required.

2) Price history explorer

Fuel prices aren’t just about today; they tell a story about policy decisions, exchange rates and taxes. The Fuel Price History page shows a table of all official prices since the data series began. You can filter the table by Inland (Gauteng) or Coastal regions and spot trends such as the long‑term rise in diesel relative to petrol or the occasional price drop. The data is updated monthly and stored in a single table that powers both the history page and the calculator.

3) Fuel cost calculator

Sometimes you don’t just want to know the price per litre – you want to know what a full tank or a road trip will cost. The Fuel Price Calculator lets you pick today’s inland or coastal price (with a manual override if the pump price differs), enter either a number of litres or a trip distance and fuel consumption, and get an instant cost estimate. There are two modes:

• Fill‑up cost: Enter the number of litres you plan to buy and the calculator multiplies it by the current price.
• Trip planning: Enter your distance and your vehicle’s fuel economy (L/100 km), and the site converts it into litres and multiplies by the selected price.

I also included a manual price override because sometimes the pump price differs slightly from the official rate. A notes section explains how to calculate fuel cost per kilometre and why “calculate petrol price” actually means calculate the cost of a fill or trip.

4) Email alerts and community feedback

Users who want to stay one step ahead can sign up for free email alerts. These notifications go out the moment the DMRE announces new prices. The site doesn’t ask for more than your email address and your agreement to receive alerts. I intentionally avoided building a mobile app – adding one more set of notifications felt unnecessary when email can do the job just fine.

What makes Petrol Pulse different

There are a few petrol price websites and apps out there (most of which are ad‑supported or out of date), but I built Petrol Pulse around five principles:

1. Official data only – All prices come directly from the South African Department of Energy. No rumours, no speculation.
2. Instant updates – The site polls for updates and publishes new prices as soon as the DMRE releases them.
3. Free and privacy‑conscious – Petrol Pulse is free to use and doesn’t require a login to obtain fuel price information. Email addresses are used solely for alerts.
4. Simple, clean, responsive design – The interface is highly performant and works seamlessly on desktop and mobile, without ad clutter or frustrating flows.
5. Community involvement – Testimonials and feedback shape the roadmap. Users have suggested additional features to help their journeys, which are currently in development.

Compared with ad‑heavy calculators or app‑store clones, the site feels more like a public utility. There’s no advertising, no dark patterns, and the privacy policy is intentionally boring (because there’s not much data collected).

Lessons learned

Building Petrol Pulse taught me that even simple data products can have surprising complexities.

• Data quality matters: DMRE information occasionally contain typos or formatting inconsistencies, so I built a parser with tests that flag anomalies. I also double‑check the totals against the official Gazette.s
• Simplicity scales: Keeping the interface minimal means I can add features without clutter. For example, adding a mini line chart on the home page took a single component slot, and adding a price‑history filter was just a few lines of code.

Beyond Petrol Pulse

Fuel prices are just one part of the cost of driving. In the future I’d like to explore:

• Carbon‑footprint estimates for trips, translating litres into kilograms of CO₂.
• SMS and WhatsApp alerts for those who prefer messages over email.
• AI-powered fuel cost prediction models for personal travel.
• Vehicle maintenance tracking features.

For now, I’m pleased that a small side project can help thousands of South Africans avoid price shocks and make informed decisions about when to fill up. If you’re tired of scrambling on Wednesday mornings or just curious about how fuel prices have evolved, give Petrol Pulse a try. And if you have ideas for making it better, drop me a line – after all, this project exists because of a shared frustration and a belief that information should be accessible.