Victorian Fuel Price Drivers

The following analysis calculates the statistical drivers of fuel prices in Victoria for the period 27 February 2026 to . The analysis uses daily prices published for every petrol station in Victoria from Services Victoria as Fair Fuel Open Data. The latest fuel watch data is available in the Services Victoria app as Servo-saver. The app provides a map based listing of prices at service stations near you.

The following analysis may help you look ahead and plan for future fuel price variability. You can anticipate:

• what day of the week is it best to refuel?
• which brands have the lowest prices?
• what premium do you pay for additional services (restrooms, coffee shops, fast food restaurants)?
• what impact does on-freeway convenience have on price?

Results in this analysis are additive — each characteristic is the marginal effect controlling for all other characteristics. Results include a 95th percentile confidence interval. The discount is calculated as the deviation of the daily price at each station for each fuel from the state-wide 7-day simple average of each fuel type.

over service stations, fuel types, and days.

You can combined these observations on structural price differentiation across service station with the state-wide petrol price cycles published by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission: Petrol price cycles in the 5 largest cities.

Day of Week

Day of week effects generally see higher prices on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, and the lowest prices on Monday and Tuesday. The effect is consistent across fuel types, and strongest for premium diesel.

The reference category is Monday.

Major Brands

The consistently cheapest petrol, controlling for location, services and day of the week, is from Costco. The most expensive petrol is from convenience stores such as 7-Eleven, Ampol and Reddy Express. Across the characteristics brand has the strongest overall effect on price.

The reference category is other.

Station services

Station services are derived from data reported to Google Maps/Places.

Opening Hours

Service stations open 24 hours, 7 days a week, tend to have slightly lower fuel prices than stations open more limited hours.

The reference category is FALSE.

Restrooms

Service stations with rest rooms ten to have slightly lower fuel prices than stations without.

The reference category is FALSE.

Restaurants

Service stations with restaurants, which includes both independent restaurants as well as fast food chains, can have slightly more expensive fuel, although the effect is not statistically significant.

The reference category is FALSE.

Coffee shops

Service stations with coffee shops or cafes, for example Browser Bean, tend to have slightly more expensive fuel, the effect is statistically significant.

The reference category is FALSE.

EV Charging

Service stations with EV charging facilities generally have slightly more expensive fuel than stations without.

The reference category is FALSE.

Location

Nearest Road Type

Service stations positioned on freeways have more expensive fuel that stations located on highways. Differences on smaller roads, such as sub-arterial and arterial roads, are not statistically significant.

Refence categoery is Collector Roads. Uses Vicmap definitions of road types.

Truck Route

Service stations on truck routes, defined as more than 15% of traffic on the nearest road is a heavy vehicle, tend to have slightly more expensive fuel than stations not on truck routes.

The reference category is FALSE.

Regions of Victoria

Inner Melbourne generally has the most expensive fuel. Fuel is slightly cheaper in the suburbs of Melbourne, and unleaded petrol is significantly cheaper in regional Victoria. Part of this effect could be the result of delays in passing on recent wholesale price increases.

The reference categoery is Melbourne - Inner. Regions are defined using ABS Statistical Areas Level 4, from the 2021 census.

Remoteness

Within the regions above, the inner-regional areas (the larger rural cities) tend to have slightly cheaper fuel than the outer-regional areas. This does not extent to diesel fuels. Examples of how SA4 regions are split between inner and outer regional areas include:

• in Gippsland: inner-regional includes Moe and Tralagon, outer-regional includes Bairnsdale and Lakes Entrance;
• in North West: inner-regional incudes Ararat, outer-regional includes Horsham;
• in Hume: inner-regional includes Seymour and Wangaratta, outer-regional includes Mansfield and Bright.

The reference categoery is Greater Melbourne and Geelong. Remoteness is defined by the ABS Remoteness Structure.