{
  "source": "Cooked Index — occupational AI risk register",
  "page": "https://cookedindex.com/jobs/transportation-workers-all-other/",
  "methodology": "https://cookedindex.com/methodology",
  "notice": "Verdicts are re-examined as evidence accumulates. Re-fetch before relying on this; the page above always carries the current score.",
  "scored_at": "2026-08-11",
  "model": "claude-opus-5",
  "occupation": {
    "title": "Transportation Workers, All Other",
    "soc_code": "53-6099",
    "category": "Transportation",
    "us_employment": 13550,
    "median_annual_wage": 45650
  },
  "verdict": "EXPOSED",
  "risk_resistance": 45,
  "contested": false,
  "near_boundary": false,
  "dimensions": {
    "task_resistance": 13,
    "embodiment": 16,
    "liability_shield": 4,
    "trust_premium": 6,
    "judgment_accountability": 6
  },
  "reasoning": {
    "task_resistance": "Chocking an aircraft, hooking a tow bar, clearing debris off a lock gate, or physically flagging a bus into a bay resists digitisation, but the same shift includes reading manifests, logging arrival times, radioing dispatch, and answering platform passenger queries — duties already handled by automated gate systems, RFID and kiosks, which is why this sits at 13 rather than 17.",
    "embodiment": "Ramp and platform work happens outdoors in jet blast, rain, ice and diesel exhaust, with lifting, coupling, climbing, and walking live roadways or track — the environment is uncontrolled and changes hourly, though it stops short of 20 because the sites are fixed, mapped, employer-controlled facilities rather than open terrain.",
    "liability_shield": "Most of these jobs need only an employer-issued badge, a SIDA or airport security clearance, and a DOT medical or CDL in some slots — no state licence, no personal certification you carry between employers, and no statutory duty that makes you rather than the carrier answerable for an incident.",
    "trust_premium": "Regular ramp crews and station staff build working rapport with the flight crews, drivers, and dispatchers they see every shift, and passengers do ask the person in the vest for directions, but the employer's customers are buying the flight or the transit ride, not you, and you are interchangeable between shifts.",
    "judgment_accountability": "Ramp signals, wing-walk procedures, chock and gate sequences, lock operating schedules and platform emergency steps are written down in SOPs and checklists, and the real calls — hold the aircraft, close the bridge, cancel the run — are escalated to a supervisor, dispatcher or controller, leaving discretion mostly in the timing and pace of executing set steps."
  },
  "rationale": "This is a residual BLS bucket — airport ramp and gate support, transit station and platform staff, bridge and lock tenders, vehicle marshals, transport helpers — so the modal worker spends most hours on their feet in terminals, yards, and roadways rather than at a screen. That physical, weather-exposed, unpredictable-environment work is what current robotics cannot cheaply replicate, and it's the main thing holding the score up. The exposure comes from the other side: the paperwork, dispatch logs, manifest checks, and passenger-information duties are already automatable, and there is no license or personal liability protecting the role, so employers can thin headcount through automated gates, sensors, kiosks, and remote monitoring.",
  "outlook": "Headcount slowly erodes as automated gates, remote monitoring, and self-service kiosks absorb the clerical and information duties, while the hands-on marshaling, cargo, and passenger-assist work stays human through 2035.",
  "what_would_raise_it": {
    "levers": [
      {
        "dimension": "liability_shield",
        "change": "Federal or state rules that name a specific credentialed on-site human as the required signer for safety-critical transport acts — e.g. FAA requiring a trained, badged marshaller/wing-walker present for pushback and ramp movements rather than camera-only clearance, or USACE/Coast Guard rules keeping a licensed lock/bridge tender personally responsible for vessel-passage decisions rather than remote consolidated control. TSA/DOT security-badge regimes (SIDA authority, chain-of-custody for cargo screening) extended to make the badge-holder the accountable party for AI-flagged anomalies would do the same.",
        "plausibility": "plausible",
        "would_add": 5
      },
      {
        "dimension": "judgment_accountability",
        "change": "If the routine tier (manifest checks, gate logs, passenger info) is stripped out by kiosks and sensors, the residual role becomes irregular-operations judgment: deciding to stop a pushback, halting a train on a platform-edge call, refusing a load, evacuating a station. Transit agency contracts and NTSB findings that formalize station/platform staff as the designated on-scene decision-maker for emergencies — as some rail agencies did after platform-death investigations — codify this.",
        "plausibility": "already happening",
        "would_add": 4
      },
      {
        "dimension": "task_resistance",
        "change": "Same two-tier shift: once clerical duties are automated, what remains is exception handling in weather, equipment failure, and crowd events, which current systems cannot resolve end to end. This raises the score only because the denominator changed, and typically comes with fewer positions.",
        "plausibility": "already happening",
        "would_add": 3
      },
      {
        "dimension": "embodiment",
        "change": "Rules that require a physical human presence irrespective of sensing capability — e.g. state transit bills mandating staffed stations/booths (as fought over in NYC and Bay Area transit contracts), or ADA enforcement actions requiring in-person assistance for wheelchair boarding and unaccompanied minors rather than call buttons.",
        "plausibility": "plausible",
        "would_add": 2
      }
    ],
    "ceiling_note": "No realistic route to a trust premium: passengers and shippers do not choose a carrier because a human marshals the aircraft or tends the lock, and the buyer is an employer minimizing headcount. Any gains here are regulatory or contractual, not market-driven, and a residual SOC bucket means each sub-occupation moves separately — the aggregate score may barely shift even if ramp or lock work is protected."
  },
  "adjudication": null,
  "employment_history": {
    "points": [
      {
        "y": 2017,
        "emp": 38460,
        "wage": 36760
      },
      {
        "y": 2018,
        "emp": 37560,
        "wage": 37490
      },
      {
        "y": 2021,
        "emp": 13750,
        "wage": 36880
      },
      {
        "y": 2022,
        "emp": 11590,
        "wage": 37430
      },
      {
        "y": 2023,
        "emp": 10940,
        "wage": 40300
      },
      {
        "y": 2024,
        "emp": 10960,
        "wage": 39630
      },
      {
        "y": 2025,
        "emp": 13550,
        "wage": 45650
      }
    ],
    "from": 2017,
    "to": 2025,
    "change_pct": -64.8,
    "comparable_from": 2019,
    "spans_soc_revision": true
  },
  "pivots": [],
  "license": "https://cookedindex.com/terms"
}