Drivers Reducing Miles from High Fuel Prices, Report Says

U.S. drivers are taking fewer highway trips, slowing down and bidding up the price of more fuel-efficient vehicles in response to a doubling of gasoline prices since 2003, according to a new government report, Bloomberg reported.

The short-term response to higher fuel costs has been “small,” said the report by the nonpartisan congressional Budget Office released Monday, Bloomberg said.

For every 50-cent increase in the price of gasoline, freeway trips dropped by 0.7%, while mass transit ridership increased by an equal amount, the report said.

A 10% price increase sustained over a longer period would cut gasoline demand by about 372,000 barrels a day, Bloomberg said.

Price increases “have been large enough to interrupt a pattern of steady growth in total gasoline consumption dating back to 1990,” the report said. If high prices persist, “the effect on overall gasoline consumption will grow stronger as older, less fuel-efficient vehicles are retired and as consumers consider other, less easily implemented adjustments to their patterns of consumption.”