Transportation energy is an important component of household budgets. Household vehicle fuel, one part of total transportation energy costs is over 3% of total household expenditures nationwide in the U.S. The average annual expenditure of over $2,000 for vehicle fuel (mostly gasoline) is comparable to the total average household expenditures for electricity and natural gas combined. However, these average values vary geographically, and lower income households can face higher energy cost burdens. The highly resolved data developed in this study reveals the variation of household energy burdens across the country and provides localized data to support local decision making.
In this study, ANL quantifies the household transportation energy affordability, defined as the percentage of annual household income spent on the household vehicle fuel costs and provides county and tract level data to enable a better understanding of the spatial variation in household transportation energy burden by connecting VMT, vehicle fuel economy, fuel costs, and income data at the census tract level.
The baseline data and framework developed here can be used to assess the spatially distributed impacts of additional transportation energy component costs or transportation policies on household transportation affordability. The full dataset is available to download and explore.