This “Fuel Island Review Pilot North Carolina Kannapolis” is a review of the fuel island at the Pilot Travel Center in Kannapolis, NC, USA.
Note:
This review is being conducted based upon our own expectations of what a fuel island that caters to professional truck drivers of commercial motor vehicles should be like. Mike’s driver manager at his trucking company has said that the company wants feedback from their drivers regarding their fuel solutions (locations where they are assigned to get fuel). If the drivers have a bad experience, they are to report that and if the company receives enough bad reports about a particular fueling location, the company will look for alternatives. In this way, there is an economic incentive for truck stops to provide what drivers need and want when they arrive at a fueling location.
For our review, we are choosing to assign a number to each aspect of the fuel island experience:
- “5” is excellent;
- “4” is very good;
- “3” is average or ok;
- “2” is unsatisfactory and needs attention;
- “1” is poor and needs immediate corrective action; and
- “N/A” means not applicable.
We are choosing not to identify a specific bay because we figure that what goes at one bay at a facility will generally be true at all of them.
Fuel Island Review
Date: 7/16/2010
Location: Pilot Travel Center, Kannapolis, NC, I-85, exit 63
Grading categories: “Fuel Island Review Pilot North Carolina Kannapolis”
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| Fuel island area was clean, devoid of fuel and oil on ground | 4 |
| Trash barrels were emptied or had little trash in them | 2 |
| Fuel pump was in good working order and delivered fuel in a timely manner | 5 |
| Card reader and keypad was in good working order | 5 |
| Transaction required no additional action from driver inside the facility | 5 |
| There were sufficient paper towels for checking oil or cleaning | 5 |
| Windshield washing fluid was present, was sufficiently clean and had soap in it for cutting grease and bug guts | 3 |
| There was a long handled squeegee with both sides in good working order for reaching truck windshields without having to get up on the truck | 5 |
| A water spigot with hose was present and in good working order | 5 |
| An air hose with commercial truck tire pressure was available on at least every other bay | 5 |
| Bays with ULSD (ultra low sulfur diesel) were well marked | 5 |
| Friendliness and courtesy of facility staff, combined with wait time | N/A |
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Fuel Island Review Pilot North Carolina Kannapolis
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| Categories being graded at this facility: | 11 |
| Total points for all categories: | 49 |
| Grade for fuel island at this facility (points/categories): | 4.5 |
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Observations: “Fuel Island Review Pilot North Carolina Kannapolis”
This is the first Pilot Travel Center we’ve ever been to where the ULSD fuel was on alternating fuel bays. This is a most clever idea that helps prevent back-ups of trucks waiting only for a small number of bays on one side or the other of the fueling area.
While the level of the wash water in the buckets was good, and while it looked like the water was pretty clean and blue (like it had good cleaning ability), Mike ended up putting some of our blue Dawn into one of the buckets near his bay. A small squirt of this stuff does wonders and we recommend that Pilot follow Petro’s lead in treating their windshield wash water this way.
A strong positive about this facility is the fact that at least on bays we saw, there were actually hoses on water faucets so that drivers could rinse their windshields after cleaning them. And the hoses were sufficiently long enough so that drivers didn’t have to fight to aim them where the water needed to go. Hurray!
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