Fuel price elasticities in the U.S. combination trucking sector

Abstract

a b s t r a c tThis paper estimates fuel price elasticities of combination trucking operations in the United States between 1970 and 2012. We evaluate trucking operations in terms of vehicle miles traveled and fuel consumption for combination trucks. Our explanatory variables include measures of economic activity, energy prices, and indicator variables that account for important regulatory shifts and changes in data collection and reporting in national transportation datasets. Our results suggest that fuel price elasticities in the United States' trucking sector have shifted from an elastic environment in the 1970s to a relatively inelastic environment today. We discuss the importance of these results for policymakers in light of new policies that aim to limit energy consumption and reduce greenhouse gas emissions from heavy-duty vehicles.

Diesel demand in the road freight sector in the UK: Estimates for different vehicle types

“…This differenced formulation is similar to the recent work of Winebrake et al (2015a Specific formulations for different vehicle types are discussed below.…”

“…Winebrake et al (2015aWinebrake et al ( , 2015b clearly found fuel demand from articulated trucks and travel activity of rigid trucks in the USA to be statistically not different from zero, yet we believe rail has emerged as a reasonable substitute to HGVs in the UK, making HGV activities and thus fuel consumption somewhat responsive to fuel costs.…”

“…Also, the likely high correlation between vehicle stock and income or GDP made the income elasticity statistically insignificant. Recently Winebrake et al (2015a) studied articulated trucks in the US and find that diesel price elasticity changed from -0.36 during pre-deregulation era to nearly zero now. This model does not have income or GDP as an explanatory factor, so income elasticity is not available.…”

“…As such, policymakers may be interested in knowing separate responses for fuel demand elasticities for freight and personal travel for these two major fuel types. However, there is a serious lack of understanding of the response of different vehicle sectors to fuel price or income changes, with only one credible study by Winebrake et al (2015a), which is for articulated trucks in the US. Separate diesel demand models for light and heavy goods vehicles and rigid trucks or articulated trucks within the heavy duty fleet is not available in any study.…”

Fuel price elasticities for single-unit truck operations in the United States

“…1 and 2, we find fuel price elasticities of combination truck VMT and combination truck fuel consumption to be essentially zero in recent decades (Winebrake et al, 2015). This paper applies the methodology previously developed for the combination truck sub-sector to evaluate fuel price elasticities for single-unit trucks, as discussed in the following section.…”