AI exposure: Bus Drivers, Transit and Intercity
Drive bus or motor coach, including regular route operations, charters, and private carriage. May assist passengers with baggage. May collect fares or tickets.
Reading this score
computedAt 29.9% of weighted task load, Bus Drivers, Transit and Intercity sits at the 53th percentile, below the point where a job's centre of gravity has moved. 56.3% of what this role does is untouched, meaning current systems cannot produce that work at all, whatever the commercial incentive.
What holds the line here is embodiment. Across this occupation's 14 tasks it averages 2.00 out of 3, the highest of the five friction dimensions. In plain terms, the work has to happen in physical space. A language model cannot move matter. Until the robotics to do this work is both good enough and cheap enough to deploy widely, capability in software does not reach it.
The most exposed thing this job does is Read maps to plan bus routes, at 93.3%. The least is Load and unload baggage in baggage compartments, at 0.0%. A gap of 93.3% between two parts of the same job is the reason this index publishes at task level. An occupation-wide number would have hidden both.
Within transportation and material moving occupations, this one is more exposed than most. The median across the 52 roles in the group is 24.2%, and only 17 of them score higher than this. Occupational families are not uniform, and the spread inside them is often wider than the gap between them.
What would move this score. Of 14 tasks, 6 are currently banded exposed, 1 assisted and 7 untouched. For that distribution to shift materially would take robotics cheap and reliable enough to deploy at scale, not a better language model. The score is re-computed every quarter against a fresh capability reference, and the change is published rather than quietly applied.
Where the score comes from
judgedEvery task is scored through the standardised work activities it maps to. These are this occupation’s averages on the six rubric dimensions. Capability is what AI can do; the other five are what stands in the way.
| Dimension | Mean | Scale |
|---|---|---|
| Capability | 1.82 | 0-4 |
| Embodiment | 2.00 | 0-3 |
| Presence | 1.21 | 0-3 |
| Accountability | 0.68 | 0-3 |
| Context | 1.07 | 0-3 |
| Verification cost | 0.96 | 0-3 |
Task by task
14 tasks, O*NET 31.0| Task | Exposed | Assisted | Untouched | Importance | Band |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Read maps to plan bus routes. | 93.3% | 6.7% | 0.0% | 4.18 | exposed |
| Announce stops to passengers. | 83.3% | 16.7% | 0.0% | 4.50 | exposed |
| Advise passengers to be seated and orderly while on vehicles. | 80.0% | 20.0% | 0.0% | 4.19 | exposed |
| Record information, such as cash receipts and ticket fares, and maintain log book. | 76.7% | 23.3% | 0.0% | 4.09 | exposed |
| Collect tickets or cash fares from passengers. | 36.7% | 13.3% | 50.0% | 4.26 | exposed |
| Assist passengers, such as elderly or individuals with disabilities, on and off bus, ensure they are seated properly, help carry baggage, and answer questions about bus schedules or routes. | 30.0% | 20.0% | 50.0% | 4.34 | exposed |
| Report delays or accidents. | 30.0% | 45.0% | 25.0% | 4.23 | assisted |
| Inspect vehicles and check gas, oil, and water levels prior to departure. | 15.0% | 10.0% | 75.0% | 4.54 | untouched |
| Park vehicles at loading areas so that passengers can board. | 6.7% | 18.3% | 75.0% | 4.54 | untouched |
| 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. | 3.3% | 9.2% | 87.5% | 4.70 | untouched |
| Handle passenger emergencies or disruptions. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.23 | untouched |
| Regulate heating, lighting, and ventilating systems for passenger comfort. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.12 | untouched |
| Maintain cleanliness of bus or motor coach. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 3.95 | untouched |
| Load and unload baggage in baggage compartments. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 3.69 | untouched |
Task text and importance ratings sourced from O*NET 31.0. Shares computed. The occupation score is the importance-weighted mean.
Occupations either side of this one
The four closest scores in the same occupational family, then the four closest anywhere in the index.
Read this carefully. Exposure is not displacement. A high score means current AI systems can produce this work, not that anyone will stop paying a person to do it. Adoption depends on economics, regulation and inertia that this index deliberately does not model. How the score is built.
What this means in practice
Most of this work is not reachable by current systems, so the immediate pressure is on the administrative edges of the role rather than its core: the scheduling, the reporting, the written records. That is where time is recovered.