3.It is generally assumed that rising fuel costs are not helpful for road freight operators, as they find it difficult to pass these charges on to customers. Generally the increases are handled better by the larger players, many of whom have agreements in place which result in surcharges being passed on directly. smaller players either do not have these mechanisms in place or do not have the bargaining power to increase their rates in line with fuel pump costs.
4.one way in which it is possible to test how well freight operators are able to pass on fuel cost increases to their customers is by examining the correlation between fuel costs and rates. If rates rise in line with changes in the price of diesel it could be concluded that freight operators are successfully passing on these costs to their customers. In fact, from the high correlation(0.85) this does indeed seem to be the case.