The federal consumer protection agency has designed and released a smartphone application intended to help consumers locate the cheapest gas stations.

Profeco director Ricardo Sheffield Padilla presented Litro x Litro Tuesday morning at the president’s morning press conference, where he told reportes that President López Obrador had urged him to design an app that would be able to account for the needs of consumers at the pump.

“The app has the ability to search according to the desires of the consumer . . . It can tell me where the most expensive gas stations are, which are the cheapest and exactly where all the mid-price gas stations are located . . . . It’s an easy-to-use app, a practical app.”

Sheffield explained that the app can search for regular, premium and diesel fuel options within a 19-kilometer radius. In addition, consumers can lodge official complaints against any irregularities in service or prices in real time.

“These complaints can be anonymous, or you can give us all of the information; you can even upload your gas station receipt.”

López Obrador said that the app will help the federal government uphold its promise to keep gasoline prices low for consumers.

“This system helps us to fulfill our promise that fuel prices will not increase, because even though we can guarantee fair prices at Pemex, sometimes the profit margins at the distribution point are excessive and this will help us to even out the prices.”

The president added that his administration will continue to support Profeco’s efforts to guarantee low fuel prices to citizens through measures like

He said “this empowerment [of consumers] is very important so that people have the information necessary to make their own decisions. This is competition and it allows us to ensure that those who offer services do not take advantage of consumers and that the consumers are the ones who ultimately decide.”

The Litro x Litro app is available at smartphone app stores.

Source: Milenio (sp), Publimetro (sp)