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How Cost Effective is Road Transport: The Cost per Mile of Trucking

Rising fuel and labor costs have made it increasingly difficult to squeeze a profit out of road transport in recent years, but the cost per mile of trucking has always been more complex than just paying the driver and the fuel bill. Figures released by The Truckers’ Report puts the operational cost per mile of truck transport at $1.38 but anecdotal evidence indicates that it is closer to $1.50 per mile. With the trend in recent years for this cost to increase by as much as 10c per mile every year, it can often be profitable to re-evaluate the use of road transport to be sure that it is still cost effective. If the basic transport rate for a truckload of products adds $1,500 per 1,000 miles then the sale price of those products potentially has to be high enough to cover that cost and more. For some products, especially primary products, this expense makes road transport less cost effective than other options like rail or sea. At the other end of the spectrum are the high end products that have profit margins which merit more expensive transport, like air freight, because of the savings that can be made from… read more »