Measurement Frauds in Fuel Dispensers: how Urban Mobility Simulators can help to combat them

Fuel dispensers are measuring instruments crucial in trading fuel as a measured good. At the same time, they are vulnerable to fraudulent activities (e.g., measurement tampering and digital counterfeits), resulting in financial losses for consumers and the industry. In many countries, the efforts from legal metrology regarding field surveillance and inspection can be costly and inefficient, and although data-driven surveillance approaches sound promising, these methods can also be hard to implement, posing significant challenges and doubts about their usefulness. This paper brings a novel approach to fight against these frauds using urban mobility simulators. These tools facilitate the implementation of fraud strategies, enabling a detailed study of their dynamics and the evaluation of countermeasures without additional costs. The feasibility of this proposal is tested in a practical experiment using the Simulation of Urban MObility (SUMO) software. SUMO is adapted to include fuel stations, vehicles with adjusted refilling behaviors, and fraudulent dispensers. Further, a metrological surveillance method based on logistic regression is implemented to identify compromised dispensers. The results closely align with previous numeric simulations, highlighting the potential of simulators as valuable tools for legal metrology in identifying and mitigating fraud in fuel dispensers.