I have to say that while I do not need gas in my car, I have a compulsion to get on line when I see a station that has gas (I haven’t actually gotten on line yet). People are a little crazy right now (well, this is New Jersey, so they are actually a little more crazy). They should probably be lining up for anti anxiety drugs.
Yeah they will. If they know that they can only buy on every other day most will modify (i.e. lessen) their driving so as to conserve gas.
During the 70s if your vanity plate ended in A thru M you were odd, N thru Z even (or vice versa, I forget)…
This is just a guess. It may reduce the overall consumption of gas because people will be more petrol-frugal if they know they must not run out on a day when they can’t buy more. I believe odd-even rationing would make me less apt to take spur of the moment trips to the grocery store, hardware store, etc.
A normal individual does not need a tank a gas a day.
What the hell are you doing? :dubious:
Businesses like Taxi’s, Freight or Emergency Vehicles get a bye considering their classification.
I don’t see the issue other than your outta gas on your off day, I think you might have to walk down the street with a gas can…
Yea, it can get silly in the details.
But, what else you gonna do. 
As others have said, you have the “Nervous Nellie” factor. A lot of people, whether they need gas or not, are filling up their tanks Just in Case. (You mention 1/2 or 3/4 of a tank, but even at a 1/4 of a tank or less, most people will get by for a week since they aren’t taking a Sunday drive in the crisis). Most of these people won’t need full tanks of gas before the crisis is over, and are just clogging up the works at the filling station.
So instead of all of the Nervous Nellies ("NN) plus the people who really need gas(“RNG”) (NN+RNG) showing up today at the station, you have (1/2NN+1/2RNG) showing up at the station; and more gas for everyone. (And remember, RNG is small in a panic).
Without rationing you have NN+RNG every day. With rationing you have 1/2NN+ 1/2 RNG every day. The other 1/2 that RNG just stays home and smokes 'em if they got 'em. There’s your difference, and an alleviation at the pumps.
It makes politicians seem like they are doing something. It is a worthless strategy that inconveniences the consumer.
/veteran of the gas lines of the 70’s
Your formulas are wrong, because you don’t really have fewer people showing up - this has been discussed earlier.
But I did want to comment on the “Nervous Nellie factor”. IMO, gas rationing might exacerbate the NNF, because a NN now knows that if they run out of gas it will be two days until they can buy again.
Under ordinary circumstances, people wait until their gas guage is at a certain point before buying gas. If they know that they can’t buy gas tomorrow, then they have to buy at some earlier point, since they can’t just watch the guage and wait until it gets to their customary point - they have to make a guess as to how much gas they would use the next day. And if they are truly NNs - and even if they’re not, frankly - they would tend to err on the side of caution, i.e. the side that leaves them less likely to be stuck somewhere without gas.
So in that sense it could backfire, and in any event, this factor would tend to offset other gains achieved from the rationing scheme, even if they exist.
I would agree if we were talking about a 1970s style situation where the shortages last for months. Here we are talking about a week or slightly more. With the place in shambles, one tank of gas will last most people the whole course of the crisis.
But at the start, panic sets in. People want that full tank of gas just in case and massive amounts of people flood the stations and deplete it of that day’s supply of gas, furthering the panic that there will be no gas, causing MORE people to show up the next day and swamping the gas supply, causing MORE panic, etc.
If you institute odd/even rationing, say day one starts with odd. You will have a few more odds coming out to fill up because they don’t want/can’t wait 2 days for gasoline, but that’s offset by the full half of the population that can’t get gas that day. It eases the supply so that all/most of the odds get gas that day.
The next day the evens go through their panic, but again, no odds can show up. But the evens mostly get gas.
On day three, most people have full tanks of gas, less people are filling up and supplies are starting to rise to handle the rest of the odd demand. The next day the even demand is satisfied. Things are returning to normal.
In short, I can’t imagine that on “even” day, the amount of evens who show up who otherwise would not is even close to the odds who would show up but legally can’t. Especially on days 3 and 4 of the crisis.
FWIW I filled up my tank this morning in North Jersey and there was no line at all. Friends of mine who live in Brooklyn say it’s still very hard to get gas there. So perhaps the odd/even rationing is having an effect. Of course there may be other factors in play – presumably it’s easier to deliver gasoline to New Jersey than Brooklyn.
That’s certainly possible, and it would take careful measurements and observations to determine the effect of even/odd rationing.
Still, I’ve been thinking about it and my instinct is that what really gets the Nervous Nellies going is seeing long lines at gas stations. The same principle is in play when night clubs keep people waiting outside (to create a long line) even though there is plenty of space inside the club. Seeing a long line creates the impression that gasoline is very scarce and precious.
I should note that in South-Central NJ there was no rationing imposed and the lines have completely disappeared. Of course, it’s possible that things weren’t as bad to begin with and this is why there was no rationing (although there were certainly 40+ car lines, at the least) but the point is that things are improving a lot, with or without rationing.
I agree. It will take careful analysis to determine what, if any, effect the rationing had.
Everyone is looking at this from the perspective of the drivers. Is it possible that this rationing is done for the benefit of the service station? If it isn’t logisitcally possible for the station’s storage tanks to be filled every day, it may be worthwhile to even out demand over a few days, rather than have everyone go and drain the storage tank on the same day it’s been filled (and leave the station out of business until the next refill).
So you get a vanity plate like 312 ABC. It’s odd because the letters end in “C,” and if anyone questions you, tell/show them it’s a vanity plate. It’s even because it ends with “2,” and doesn’t look like a vanity plate so no one questions you.
Get gas on any day.
312 would be even. Vanity plates with no numbers are all considered odd.
I am afraid that I have to agree. It seems to make people feel that the pols are doing something.
A statistician wrote an op-ed piece in the paper the other day, making the point, as mentioned upthread, that it would make sense if you generally bought gas every day. Since you don’t, it just makes you feel that you gotta get gas on “your” day and people actually tend to fill up more often, thus exacerbating the problem.
Exactly. Better top up to make sure you make it two more days.
I think the statistician is overconfident, since there are other psychological issues in play. It’s difficult to say without careful study which factors predominate.
As someone who drives between New York and New Jersey every day, I can say that in my unscientific observations, the gas situation in New Jersey (which has odd/even rationing) is much better than in New York (which does not, or did not until today).
And by the way, while in most cases I share your contempt for politicians who enact “feel good” policies, it’s not necessarily pointless in this kind of situation. If people feel that the government is on top of the situation, it may very well reduce panic levels and actually improve the situation in reality.
I already mentioned it above, but I find it striking that everyone I know who waited in long lines to buy gas already had plenty of gasoline in their tank.
Well, toilet paper might serve as a model here. Most people do not buy packs of toilet paper every day, wouldn’t you agree?
And yet when it snows big-time, the shelves in every grocery store get emptied immediately (at least around here).
I didn’t see anyone suggest that anything which is not purchased every day can never be subject to shortages. The question is whether even/odd rationing is effective in such cases, and the same question would apply to toilet paper.
We could avoid lines completely, by scratching the “anti-gouge” laws, letting station owners price their products according to demand. Then there would be no lines, but prices would go up.
In any case, I suspect that the even/odd rationing reduces the variability in daily demand. Whether that’s significant, I couldn’t say.