> > My statement has to be based on the one thing which can be consistently verified. I don't know how common these are elsewhere, but we do have several service stations with both full service and self service, depending on which bank of pumps you select. The banks are clearly labelled. In my experience, the majority of service stations which offer both have the same price for both. I can think of one notable exception, a service station located at the corner of two major access routes to the downtown core.
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> We have a quite a few of those self serve/full serve stations here in Edmonton too. In fact, I think that we have WAY more of those then full serve only stations. However, unlike the stations in Calgary (it seems), every single one of them charges a different price for the self serve then the full serve. It tends to be around half a cent more per litre, but I'm not certain about that. Still, I can't think of any exception to the differing prices on mixed stations that I've seen in Edmonton. Of course, with those stations I find that the self-serve pumps are MUCH farther away from the main building then the full serve ones, even though the full serve ones have their own little booths.
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> Now, it would also seem that the prices around Edmonton are fairly constent from one side to the other. When I go to Karate class, we pass by some gas stations that are on the other side of town from where we live (the club is close to where we USED to live). It may differ by about a cent, but really not all that much. One exception is a gas station that we pass by on the way to the Edmonton International Airport. That one just seems to have WEIRD prices. It's frequently either 5 cents more or 5 cents less then anywhere else in Edmonton and I have no idea why.
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> -Ka"I'm at a loss at what to put here, but I need to put something, if only for traditional sake"z!

I can probably explain the weird station. We have one like that here too, on the edge of town heading towards the mountains. Since that station is the last major one on the route to the mountains (and hence skiing) they tend to get a lot of people in the morning who get gas there because it is the last chance. Hence, in the morning, their prices are HIGH (usually about five cents more than the average). In the evening, they are the first thing people see coming back into town, so their prices are LOW (about three cents lower than the average) so people will fill up there instead of heading into town and finding a more expensive place. I think it is a VERY cool marketing strategy. BTW, I observed the prices, and used my powerful mind to intuit the reason for them. ;-)

I suspect that similar reasons drive the price variations around the city. It could also be simply the sheer size of the city. Edmonton is big, but Calgary is bigger (:-p) and Calgary SPRAWLS. We have SO MUCH green space within city limits that we were acknowledged as the number one city in Canada for enclosed green space two years ago, and our tendency is to grow outward with new subdivisions rather than upward, since the room for growth is there. As a result, it takes about two hours to cross the city north-south most of the time. (At 3am it gets down to probably more like 1-1.5 hours.) Anyway, I suspect that the size has the most impact on the variation in prices.

Don "Why do I keep rambling like this? This post isn't really worth reading..." Monkey