A new Web site designed to help U.S. drivers find the cheapest gasoline prices was overwhelmed by visitors Thursday, forcing a temporary shut down.
The debut of travel club AAA's Fuel Price Finder Web site drew so many hits from members in pursuit of locating gasoline stations in their areas with the cheapest prices that the site was overwhelmed and had to be shut down for reprogramming, the AAA said.
"Oil Price Information Service had to temporarily shut down and reprogram the servers that operate the site for AAA," the travel organization's press officer said in a statement.
Ahead of the Memorial Day weekend, the traditional start of the U.S. summer driving season, AAA announced its new Fuel Price Finder service. Members can access AAA club Web sites to find the cheapest individual service gasoline stations throughout the United States.
"While the site was stress-tested by OPIS prior to today's roll-out, the test could not have anticipated such a strong, immediate public response to the site's availability," AAA said.
AAA said it expected the site to be operational again no later than Friday afternoon.
The AAA Fuel Price Finder tracks gasoline price data from 85,000 stations throughout the United States, detailing prices at stations in a three-, five-, or 10-mile radius of any zip code.
Results are provided in a map of the area with stations listed with their fuel prices, street address and information on whether or not diesel fuel is available.
More than 20 individual AAA club Web sites, from the populous Northeast United States to California on the West Coast, offer links to the price finder.
The Web tool is an extension of the data AAA uses to calculate U.S. average retail gasoline and diesel fuel prices. On Thursday, the AAA's calculation of the U.S. average retail gasoline price stood at $2.111 a gallon, with diesel at $2.256 a gallon.
Record prices were recorded by AAA April 11, when the average gasoline price reached $2.276 and diesel hit $2.388 a gallon.
