Why don’t gas stations use digital number displays for gas prices? I’ve only seen a few (like 2) out of hundreds that have these signs. Isn’t it harder and more work for the the guy to go out there with a stick and put the prices up? It would be easier to hit a switch and change the prices from inside the store. Is it too much for the gas station owner to install? What if the price malfunctions and shows a wrong price? Does the gas station have to honor that price, and is that the reason there aren’t many digital displays? I feel like we are stuck in the dark ages still putting plastic number on a board.
Most petrol stations in the UK use one of two types of sign. Some supermarkets and big chains tend to use red LED digital displays, but the most common are “digital” in the sense that they use 8-segment calculator-type displays, but the segments are physically covered and uncovered (example, from Switzerland as it’s the first pic I could find). I don’t know whether this has to be done manually - I would guess not, as many of them seem to be behind glass with no obvious way of opening it, but I suppose they might be unlockable.
But I guess the reason most older gas stations use low-tech signs is that plastic numbers are cheaper than a fancy digital display, and do the job just as well. If it ain’t broke…
In my area, they’re almost all electronic. The ones that aren’t are usually kind of shoddy, older gas stations in places that I don’t want to stop at anyway (and some of the fancy new ones are in places I don’t want to stop at, too).
Hmm, I’ve seen very few in the Phoenix area that have digital displays. I always figured that the digital ones would be harder to read in the bright sun we have here most of the year.
Some of the newer stations have them (Safeway on Tatum and Greenway), but very few. LED signs are expensive, and the stations are paying for a gas monkey anyway, so…
That was my assumption. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a gas station price sign in Florida that didn’t use manually-changed plastic cards.
Usually the number placards match the franchise color scheme (eg. green/white for BP), so I would assume the corporate/franchise operations people require them that way.
Or supply them; it’d be easier that way.
I think there’s a moving trend towards the digital displays. The gas station down the street just changed from the old-style to a new digital display. I’ve seen a good mix of both types in my area but I’d say with the gas prices fluctuating so much lately that many are looking to digital to avoid having to bring out that massive magnetic pole every hour…
Digital is expensive but at some point you have to consider the labor put into manually changing the prices so frequently.
Actually, I just realized that Racetrac stations here use yellow-on-black digital displays.
The stations around me all use the older signs described by the OP. The sign code of the suburb where I live was updated some years back, and it now requires short monument-type signs; taller pole signs are now banned. In a couple of years, the amortization period for the older signs will have expired, and all the old pole signs in the city replaced. The old signs will probably be converted to electronic display when they’re replaced.
After gas crashed through a dollar a litre here just about every place upgraded to digital signs. They ran out of digits and figured since they were upgrading anyway then it may as well be digital. Once you guys reach $10 a gallon you’ll probably follow suit. 
I anxiously await the day that gas companies award consulting contracts to those “National Debt Clock” people so they can put up digital displays which can keep up with price rises.
Part of it is that LED signs are EXTREMELY expensive. It’s hard to mention a price without knowing specifics (size, color or monochrome, res, etc), but I’d guess, for a gas station to put in 6 small LED signs, (one for each grade x 2 (for each side of the sign), they’d be looking at $10,000 for just the LED, not counting the actual sign work that would have to be done.
Time was when gas prices didn’t really change that often…
Um… why?
An LED clock radio costs, what, ten bucks?
Is there some sort of physical issue which makes it really expensive to make big LED numbers?
AFAICT, all you’d need is six/twelve generic digit displays, which are already in use for all sorts of other stuff, and a guy to wire them to a relay or whatever. I can’t imagine how that could cost more than, say, $500.
Just a random factoid, I worked at a small gas station back in the 70s in Omaha, Nebraska. At that time anyway, there was a law that a station could only change the price of gasoline once a day. I don’t know if it was a local law or a state law or what, and sometimes we’d change before opening, sometimes in the middle of the day. We’d get a call from the district manager who had checked the other stations in the area. Does anyone know if that’s still the case, anywhere?
Satch
I don’t know why, it just is. Well, I think I’m thinking of something different. The LED signs I’m talking about are like the one’s you see outside a store flashing their specials. Those (the one’s we looked at) are made up of smaller cells, each one about (off the top of my head) 4x6 inches and then put together into an array to make them whatever size you want. I’m thinking a small sign made up of a few of those for each grade of gas. Those are really expensive.
*Satchmo 'round here the gas stations are only allowed to change the price of gas once per day, it’s an anti price gouging thing. They don’t want you to raise your price in the morning to, say $3.79, and then raise it again if everyone else sets theirs to $3.99. This was pretty unknown until 9/11 as all the gas stations were raising their prices all day long, as the lines got longer they kept raising the prices. The news and goverment tried to kinda publicly embarasses the owners who did that AND forced them to refund the difference to anyone who paid with a credit card (since they could do it without having to track everyone down).
I’m talking about seven-segment displays like this.
I think you’re talking about, like, mini LCD displays or something.
You are correct.
You do see automated displays on very high poles intended to be seen from the limited-access highway, presumably because it would be much more expensive to change those manually. Even there, though, they usually seem to be the sort that have physical shutters which open or close, rather than LEDs.