Will AI replace Highway Maintenance Workers?
Estimated risk score: 7 out of 100
Very low replacement risk
Estimate from published task research, not reviewed by a person · how we estimate
Within about 19 points for 4 in 5 of the jobs we checked (0 to 26).
For the occupation as a whole, from ratings of its 19 O*NET tasks published in 2023 and calibrated to our hand scores. A specialty inside it can sit higher or lower.
O*NET-SOC 47-4051.00 · Construction and Extraction
Tasks rated in 2023 as ones AI could do or speed up
Tasks a GPT-4-class model could do, or do in half the time or less: 0 of its 19 rated tasks. In O*NET’s words.
None of its rated tasks.
Tasks rated in 2023 as not sped up by AI
Tasks such a model was rated as not speeding up or taking over: 18 of its 19 rated tasks; the first 6 are shown. In O*NET’s words.
- Clean and clear debris from culverts, catch basins, drop inlets, ditches, and other drain structures.
- Drive heavy equipment and vehicles with adjustable attachments to sweep debris from paved surfaces, mow grass and weeds, remove snow and ice, and spread salt and sand.
- Drive trucks to transport crews and equipment to work sites.
- Dump, spread, and tamp asphalt, using pneumatic tampers, to repair joints and patch broken pavement.
- Erect, install, or repair guardrails, road shoulders, berms, highway markers, warning signals, and highway lighting, using hand tools and power tools.
- Flag motorists to warn them of obstacles or repair work ahead.
What the job is
Maintain highways, municipal and rural roads, airport runways, and rights-of-way. Duties include patching broken or eroded pavement and repairing guard rails, highway markers, and snow fences. May also mow or clear brush from along road, or plow snow from roadway.
Also called: Highway Maintainer, Transportation Maintenance Specialist (TMS), TMS, Hot Oiler, Road Maker, Road Oiler, Road Mender, Road Worker.
Closest jobs we score by hand
In the same field (Construction and Extraction). Different jobs, each scored by a person.
Source. This site includes information from the O*NET 30.1 Database by the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (USDOL/ETA). Used under the CC BY 4.0 license. O*NET® is a trademark of USDOL/ETA. USDOL/ETA has not approved, endorsed, or tested these modifications. (O*NET, CC BY 4.0.) Task ratings: Eloundou, Manning, Mishkin and Rock (2023), “GPTs are GPTs: An Early Look at the Labor Market Impact Potential of Large Language Models”, data used under the MIT licence (licence texts). Our change: we averaged the ratings over this occupation’s tasks and calibrated them to our 0–100 scale. It is not a prediction about any one person and not career advice. Disagree? Write to hello@yourstopwashit.com. How we estimate