UK diesel hit 200.04p per litre this week — up from 142.99p a year earlier, a 40% jump in twelve months — and that price shock, more than any environmental target, is now driving fleet strategy. GXO Logistics' latest Future of Transport survey of more than 1,000 UK supply chain, transport and logistics decision-makers found 63% say rising fuel costs are accelerating their interest in alternative-fuel vehicles.

The gap between intent and action is the story. Only 38% of operators currently run alternative-fuel vehicles, even though 87% identify emissions reduction as a key priority. Nearly half a decade of decarbonisation rhetoric has not translated into parked trucks.

Money explains why. Some 76% of respondents said demonstrating cost savings or operational efficiencies was essential to securing investment in lower-emission transport. In other words: no provable payback, no capex. GXO lists three barriers delaying decisions — high upfront vehicle costs, uncertainty over which fuel technology will win, and doubts about infrastructure. None of these is close to being resolved.

What are operators doing instead?

They are sweating the assets they already own. The survey found operators are squeezing efficiency out of existing diesel fleets:

• 43% are reducing part-loads
• 41% are cutting empty running
• 41% are exploring fleet sharing
• 39% are optimising routes

These are margin defences, not transition strategies. They buy time, and with diesel at 200p, time is expensive.

Carl Hanson, managing director, transport, GXO UK & Ireland, said: "Decarbonisation and commercial performance cannot be treated as competing priorities. The findings show that businesses need practical solutions that deliver efficiencies now while preparing their fleets for a range of future fuels."

Note the phrasing: "a range of future fuels." No operator in the survey is betting on a single technology, and the timeline data explains the hedging.

Which fuel wins — and when?

Some 70% of logistics leaders expect gas-powered fleets running LNG or CNG to be viable and affordable by 2028. That edges out electric HGVs at 68%, biofuels at 64% and hydrogen at 62%. A four-point spread across four technologies is not a consensus; it is a shrug. And gas leading electric in a Net Zero economy suggests operators are pricing practicality above purity.

The infrastructure numbers are starker. Only 25% of businesses have begun investment planning for charging or refuelling infrastructure. Only 30% have started procurement planning for future energy requirements. If 70% expect affordable gas fleets by 2028, roughly three-quarters of them have done nothing concrete to fuel those fleets.

That mismatch — expectation without preparation — is the survey's quiet finding, and GXO's press release does not address it.

Is real-world evidence moving the needle?

Some, slowly. GXO is participating in the UK's Zero Emission HGV and Infrastructure Demonstrator (ZEHID) programme, testing electric HGVs and charging infrastructure in commercial freight operations. The programme's first annual report shows participating HGVs have travelled more than 2.2 million miles and moved over 550,000 tonnes of freight. That is proof electric trucks can work in revenue service — 2.2 million miles is roughly 88 times around the equator — but it is a demonstrator fleet, not a mass market.

For shippers and forwarders, the practical read is this: UK road capacity will not decarbonise quickly, but carriers under fuel pressure will keep pushing load consolidation, shared capacity and route optimisation — changes that touch service patterns and pricing regardless of what sits in the tractor unit.

With diesel up 57p per litre year on year and barely a quarter of fleets planning energy infrastructure, expect fuel surcharges and efficiency-driven capacity deals to shape UK road freight well before alternative-fuel adoption reaches even half the market.