DUNMORE, LACKAWANNA CO. (WOLF) — For the last 38 years, Road Scholar Transport in Dunmore has been through a lot.
“It’s a very volatile industry, though,” said Road Scholar Transport vice president Kellie Barrett McMullen. “There’s constant changes and regulations and protocols that you have to make sure that you’re following, and you never know what’s coming next.”
The family-owned trucking operation oversees a fleet of over 100 trucks delivering all types of goods across the east coast and mid-west. In an average year, they deliver over 520 million items over the range of around 9 million miles.
The family’s biggest headache isn’t the logistics of the operation however; it’s the price of diesel.
“It’s increased significantly over the past year and a half,” continued Barrett McMullen. “I think we’re up about $2 more per gallon than we were a couple years ago. So, it has impacted the cost of doing business substantially.”
To experts, the cause is simple: the war in Iran and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz.
“Once the war in Iran was initiated and we saw gas top $4, and now it’s at $4.23 nationally on average today,” explained Breyon Williams, the chief economist at Groundwork Collaborative. “Diesel is at a record. So we’ve never had these level prices for diesel. Diesel right now is above $6 per gallon.”
According to a Brown University breakdown, the rise in gas and diesel since late February has costed the average family over $800.
For Road Scholar Transport, by the end of the year, the extra costs for diesel will cost them nearly $2 million.
With lower prices seemingly nowhere near, the business plans to trek on. They’ve implemented new strategies to lower the amount of gas used, and they say, like everything in the last four decades, they’ll do what it takes to keep on driving.