Drive passenger vehicles
Little of this can be handed to software today.
This happens in the physical world, so software agents do not touch it. Automation here means robotics and machinery, which is a different market from the one mapped on this site, on a much slower clock.
| How automatable | Barely automatable |
|---|---|
| Kind of work | Physical, manual and inspection work |
| Jobs that do it | 10 occupations |
| Tool categories that apply | None |
| O*NET activity | Operating Vehicles, Mechanized Devices, or Equipment (4.A.3.a.4) |
What this looks like on the job
Not our paraphrase. These are real task statements recorded against this activity, spread across the 10 occupations that perform it.
- Assemble and maintain portfolios, print composite cards, and travel to go-sees to obtain jobs.
- Drive to sawmills, wharfs, or skids to inspect logs or pulpwood.
- Drive ambulances or assist ambulance drivers in transporting sick, injured, or convalescent persons.
- Drive gasoline, diesel, or electrically powered multi-passenger vehicles to transport students between neighborhoods, schools, and school activities.
- Drive vehicles over specified routes or to specified destinations according to time schedules, complying with traffic regulations to ensure that passengers have a smooth and safe ride.
- Drive shuttle busses, limousines, company cars, or privately owned vehicles to transport passengers.
- Drive taxicabs or privately owned vehicles to transport passengers.
- Operate controls to open and close transit vehicle doors.
- Park and retrieve automobiles for customers in parking lots, storage garages, or new car lots.
- Drive vehicles to or from workshops or customers' workplaces or homes.
- Pick up and drop off students at regularly scheduled neighborhood locations, following strict time schedules.
- Park vehicles at loading areas so that passengers can board.
- Operate vehicles with specialized equipment, such as wheelchair lifts, to transport and secure passengers with special needs.
- Pick up passengers at prearranged locations, at taxi stands, or by cruising streets in high-traffic areas.
- Drive and control rail-guided public transportation, such as subways, elevated trains, and electric-powered streetcars, trams, or trolleys, to transport passengers.
- Pick up and drop off passengers at regularly scheduled neighborhood locations, following strict time schedules.
- Regulate vehicle speed and the time spent at each stop to maintain schedules.
What we would actually use
Nothing in our landscape addresses this work. That is the honest answer rather than a padded list: this activity needs a person present, or a machine rather than a software agent.
Nothing on this site applies. Automation here is robotics and machinery, a different market on a much slower clock, and no software subscription moves it.
Chosen for the cheapest thing that does the job, not the best funded. Nothing on this site is sponsored, and the full landscape is there when you want to disagree with us.
How people actually do it
No workflow names this activity yet, but these automate the same kind of work, with the prompts to paste and what to keep for yourself.
Who does this work
10 occupations in the O*NET database perform this activity. Each one has a full breakdown of its other tasks.
Work that goes with it
O*NET groups these under “Operate transportation equipment or vehicles”. In practice they tend to be done by the same person, in the same sitting.
Method. The activity, its taxonomy placement and the occupations that perform it come straight from the public-domain O*NET 30.3 database. The automatability band is ours: we map each of O*NET’s 41 generalized work activities to how much of its output current software can produce, assuming a person still reviews and owns the result. It is a coarse three-way judgment on purpose. A precise-looking percentage here would be invented.