Subway and Streetcar Operators

Mixed — a routine tier and a judgment tier. Holding the throttle to a signaled speed profile on a fixed guideway is a solved problem — CBTC does it on the Victoria and Canarsie lines already — so the 8 rests entirely on the non-driving residue: berthing accuracy at curved platforms, reading a crowded platform edge before releasing doors, and getting a stalled train and 800 passengers off in a tunnel with third rail live.

Some physical or field component. You are sealed in a cab in a controlled tunnel most of the shift, which caps this well below a track worker, but the 11 reflects the parts that put you outside it: walking the consist to cut out a sticking brake, climbing down to the roadbed for an evacuation or a person under the train, and manually cranking or bypassing doors when the pneumatics fail.

Certification preferred, not legally required. You need a federally recognized certification and route qualification (49 CFR Part 243, and FRA Part 240-style certification where the line is regulated) plus rules-book recertification, and you can be decertified and drug-tested after a signal overrun — but you sign no design or dispatch decision and the authority carries the liability, which is why this sits at 7 rather than in the licensed-professional range.

Some relationship component. Riders board without knowing your name and the announcement is increasingly recorded, so the relationship is not the service — the 6 credits the fact that passengers visibly settle when a uniformed operator gets on the PA during a delay or a smoke condition, and that's a real institutional reason the seat stays occupied.

Meaningful discretion. The rulebook covers most of your shift — flagging, restricted speed, absolute block, radio protocol — and dropping to 8 rather than lower is warranted because the calls that aren't scripted are big: whether to hold in the tunnel or run to the next platform, when to key by a red signal, whether an unresponsive passenger stops the train.