What will happen when transport fuel supply falls short of demand? If you are a Mechanical Engineer, this is an ideal innovation space, an important situation where a solution does not yet exist. Our conceptgeneration, modelling and design research has yielded a possible new technology allowing business as usual to be that which happens when supply falls short of demand. The Fuel Retail Management System (FRMS) is a novel ICT concept which uses the design elements of allocation market systems to manage constrained fuel supplies – if it is deployed in time.