Straight answer: a petrol pump needs cameras covering four distinct positions — the forecourt (nozzles and vehicles), the cashier till, the tanker unloading bay, and the entry-exit gate. Each covers a different risk: drive-offs, cash handling, delivery disputes, and vehicle identification. A pump with plenty of cameras but none aimed correctly at these four still has real gaps.
We visit a lot of petrol pumps in Punjab during security audits, and almost none are short on camera count. Owners have usually installed six, eight, sometimes a dozen units over the years. What's missing is coverage of the four spots where the money and the risk actually concentrate. A wide shot of the whole forecourt looks reassuring on a monitor and captures almost nothing usable when something actually happens.
Where should forecourt cameras be aimed?
Not at the forecourt as a whole — at each island, close enough to read a number plate and see which nozzle a vehicle is at. One camera trying to cover four islands from a distance will show you that a car was there, but not which pump it used or whether the nozzle was replaced before it left. Budget roughly one camera per two to three nozzles, angled down the island rather than across the whole yard.
Why does the till need its own camera, separate from the forecourt?
Cash handling disputes — a customer claiming they paid more than the receipt shows, or a shortage at shift close — get settled by video of the transaction, not by the forecourt feed. The till camera should sit overhead, angled to catch both the cashier's hands at the drawer and the customer's face in one frame. A camera pointed only at the drawer records the money moving but not who was standing there when it did.
What is the tanker bay camera actually for?
Fuel delivery is its own risk category, separate from forecourt theft. Short delivery, wrong grade delivered, or contamination during transfer are disputes between the pump owner and the supplier, and they get resolved by a timestamped video of the unloading process — dip readings before and after, seal checks, the duration of the transfer. Unloading is also a fire-risk operation, and a camera on the bay supports a supervised process rather than an unsupervised one. This is a different job from watching for theft, which is why it needs its own dedicated position rather than relying on a forecourt camera that happens to have the tanker bay in frame.
What does the entry-exit camera actually solve?
Vehicle identification, specifically number plates, and it's the position most petrol pumps get wrong. A forecourt camera trying to double as a plate camera almost never works — the angle is too wide and the distance too long for a plate to resolve clearly. What actually reads plates reliably is a dedicated, close, fixed-angle camera near the exit lane, positioned close to head-on with the plate rather than catching it at a diagonal from across the yard. This is the same physics that affects number plate recognition anywhere — angle and distance decide whether the system works, not the camera's resolution number on the box.
What cameras alone don't solve
None of this stops a drive-off from happening — a camera records it clearly enough to support a police report and identify the vehicle, but the car has still left with unpaid fuel. Stopping the drive-off itself needs a process change: prepayment before the nozzle is handed over, or an attendant confirming payment before release. Cameras give you evidence and a deterrent effect from visible signage; they don't replace the operational discipline that prevents the loss in the first place. Be wary of any vendor who implies otherwise.