Transportation Economic Trends
Cost of Transportation:
Cost of Fuel
This page discusses fuel prices. Firms and households spend more on transportation when fuel prices increase. This includes firms that purchase fuel to acquire raw materials and deliver their own goods to markets and firms that buy fuel to provide transportation services for a fee, such as airlines and trucking companies. Households and firms purchasing transportation services may face higher prices if the firms providing the services raise their prices in response to an increase in fuel prices, e.g., charge more for airfare or truck transportation. Households purchasing fuel to operate their own vehicles also will face higher out-of-pocket transportation costs when fuel prices rise.
- Fuel prices—a transportation cost—rose for the last two consecutive years. From 2021 to 2022, jet fuel increased the most at 43.8 percent, followed by on-highway diesel fuel and motor gasoline (all types), which increased by 39.8 and 31.8 percent, respectively.
- The 2022 price of motor gasoline (all types) exceeded the 2012 peak by 11.7 percent. Despite the increase, jet fuel and on-highway diesel prices remain below the peak reached in 2012 by 9.5 percent and 3.8 percent, respectively.
- The rise in fuel price from 2021 to 2022 is not as large as the price increase from 2020 to 2021 when motor gasoline (all types) had the largest year-over-year growth, and jet fuel and on-highway diesel had the second largest increase since 1990.
- From 2021 to 2022, states in all areas experienced an increase in motor gasoline prices (all grades and types). The U.S. average motor gasoline fuel price rose by 30.9 percent, ranging from an increase of 24.6 percent in the Rocky Mountains to 34.6 percent in New England.
Cost of Fuel
Sales Price of Fuel by Mode
- Motor gasoline: Used by both firms and households to operate motor vehicles.
- On-highway diesel: Used by both firms and households to operate motor vehicles requiring diesel fuel.
- Jet fuel kerosene: Used for air transportation by households owning their own planes and by airlines, which provide both freight and passenger transportation to firms and passenger transportation to households.
- Railroad diesel: Used for both freight and passenger transportation to firms and passenger transportation to households
Sales Price of Fuel by Region
- Inflation faced by transportation providers, businesses using transportation services, and households (monthly consumer and producer price indexes for transportation and transportation-related items)