Your fuel budget from June doesn't work anymore. Gas is up nearly 8% in a month, and it's eating the margin you thought you had locked in.
Retail gasoline hit $4.211/gal nationally as of August 3, up from $3.911 on July 6 — a six-week climb of roughly 7.7%, according to EIA weekly data. The one bit of relief: last week's reading ($4.228 on July 27) actually ticked down slightly, suggesting the run may be leveling off rather than accelerating. But "leveling off at $4.21" is still a different operating environment than the $3.90s most route budgets were built around this spring.
For DSP and last-mile fleets running gas-powered ProMasters and Transits — the dominant vehicle mix in this segment — that's not a rounding error. A fleet averaging 18-19 mpg across 150-200 miles per route per day is burning roughly $32-38 in fuel per van, per shift, at current prices. Scale that across a 40-van operation running six days a week, and the six-week price move alone adds real weekly cost that most rate agreements weren't built to absorb.
The bigger risk isn't the current number — it's the pattern. Four straight weekly increases before last week's dip means volatility, not stability, is the baseline heading into fall. Operators who haven't rebuilt their fuel assumptions since Q2 are likely underpricing their true cost per route right now, especially on longer rural or exurban routes where mileage per stop runs higher.
Watch the next two EIA readings before deciding if this is a plateau or a pause. Either way, the gap between what routes were priced at and what they're actually costing to run is the number that matters this week.
See how this affects your cost per stop — free calculator at pexara.ai/calculator