Jobs / Transportation and material moving
Can agents do transportation and material moving work?
Drive vehicles, fly aircraft, and move freight and materials, for example truck, taxi, and forklift work.
- US jobs
- 13,677,170 (8.8% of employment)
- Typical wage
- $47K a year (employment-weighted mean of occupation medians)
- Occupations
- 57 in O*NET 31.0
- Evidence
- 1 direct benchmark, 1 also relevant, 0 context only
The answer today
UnmeasuredNo change since 24 Sep 2025.
Rule: No direct benchmark gives a success rate.
Direct evidence without a success rate
- Waymo Safety Impact data hub by Waymo: a field study of real deployments. It adds to the work measured, but it cannot set a step.
Next step: A direct benchmark that reports how many tasks agents complete.
How much of the work is measured
Less than 1% of the work in this family is measured by direct benchmarks. Little of the work is measured (less than 20%). On 24 Sep 2025: less than 1%.
Work = the O*NET 31.0 work activities of the family's occupations, weighted by how important each task is and by US employment. A benchmark measures an activity when its tasks make the agent do it and its grading checks it. Method.
| Work activity (O*NET) | Share of the work | Direct benchmark |
|---|---|---|
| Operate transportation equipment or vehicles | 7.7% | Measured |
| Load products, materials, or equipment for transportation or further processing | 6.6% | Not measured |
| Clean tools, equipment, facilities, or work areas | 5.8% | Not measured |
| Maintain operational records | 5.0% | Not measured |
| Sort materials or products | 3.9% | Not measured |
| Stock supplies or products | 3.7% | Not measured |
| Move materials, equipment, or supplies | 3.7% | Not measured |
| Operate lifting or moving equipment | 3.7% | Not measured |
| Read documents or materials to inform work processes | 3.5% | Not measured |
| Maintain vehicles in working condition | 3.0% | Not measured |
Our reading
No direct benchmark gives a completion rate for driving or material moving, so the family is unmeasured. The evidence is a field study: Waymo's Safety Impact hub reports that its driverless fleet had 82% fewer any-injury-reported crashes than human drivers over 220.6 million rider-only miles through March 2026 (95% CI 78% to 85%). That measures the safety of one self-driving system on surface streets in five metro areas, not trips completed, and the company reports on its own driver. A crash rate is not a share of tasks completed, so it adds coverage but no step. No benchmark measures loading products or materials, the second largest activity, or operating lifting equipment.
Evidence: Waymo Safety Impact data hub by Waymo. Written 24 Sep 2026.
Benchmarks for this work
Direct evidence
Work benchmarks mapped primary to this family. They set the step when they report how many tasks agents complete.
- 82%Waymo Driver (rider-only, 220.6M miles through March 2026) · Mar 2026Unrated
Also relevant
These benchmarks cover part of this family's work, or have no result yet. They do not set its step.
Functions: Household choresRobot manipulationLong-horizon autonomyDriving
What we do not know
- Benchmarks measure tasks, not whole jobs. A job is a bundle of tasks, judgment, and relationships.
- Capability is not adoption. A task that agents can do in a benchmark may still be done by people at work.
- Most results come from single runs. Reliability over many runs is often unknown.
Occupations in this family
Sorted by US employment (BLS OEWS May 2025). O*NET sub-occupations share the employment figure of their SOC group. Work measured = the share of the occupation's O*NET work that direct benchmarks test.
How to cite
Credit the original work first: the benchmarks listed on this page, and their institutions.
Then, if you used this page:
Can Agents Work. "Can agents do transportation and material moving work?." https://canagentswork.com/jobs/transportation-material-moving/ (accessed 2026-09-24). CC BY 4.0.@misc{caw-jobs-transportation-material-moving,
title = {{Can agents do transportation and material moving work?}},
author = {{Can Agents Work}},
year = {2026},
howpublished = {\url{https://canagentswork.com/jobs/transportation-material-moving/}},
note = {Accessed 2026-09-24. CC BY 4.0}
}