Skip to content
man bot

Service and sales workers · code 5112

Transport conductors

Transport conductors check and issue tickets and ensure the safety and comfort of passengers on trains, trams, buses and other public transport vehicles. Tasks include - (a) collecting and issuing tickets, passes or fares, and checking the validity of tickets issued previously; (b) attending to sleeping-cars and their occupants on passenger trains; (c) providing assistance with boarding, seating and luggage as required, especially to elderly, sick or injured people; (d) opening and closing doors for passengers; (e) performing equipment safety checks prior to departure; (f) signalling to drivers to stop or proceed; (g) greeting passengers boarding transportation equipment, and announcing routes and stops. (h) ensuring that safety regulations are respected; (i) responding to passengers’ requests and complaints and providing information about stops and connections; (j) taking appropriate action in case of emergencies or accidents. Examples of the occupations classified here: - Bus conductor - Cable car conductor - Ticket inspector (public transport) - Train conductor - Tram conductor

A few tasks are affected, but the heart of the job isn't. It ranks 197 of 427 for holding up against AI.

Also known as

  • chief conductor
  • railway passenger service agent
  • train conductor

Job titles from the EU's ESCO list. Search for any of them on the jobs page and you'll end up here.

75.1
Holds up
against AI Minimal Exposure

AI could take on 24.9 of 100, on average
so it holds up at 100 − 24.9 = 75.1

That's the whole sum, and you can check it against the ILO's study.

57
How hands-on
out of 100

From O*NET, averaged across 3 US jobs

27.7
How fiddly
and cramped

finger skill 30.4 · hand skill 30.8 · cramped spaces 21.8 · averaged

Kind of hands-on work · hands-on 50+ · fiddly under 39.4 Hands-on, less fiddly work

Less fine handwork and fewer cramped spaces than a typical hands-on job. That clears one hurdle for machines. It doesn't mean machines are doing this work yet.

estimated O*NET 31.0 BLS occupational crosswalk chain ISCO-08 to 2010 SOC (Aug 2012, rev. Jun 2015); 2010 to 2018 SOC (Nov 2017); O*NET-SOC 2019 taxonomy data 0.7-work-setting measures chosen by Frey & Osborne (2017) · the grouping is a sorting, not a measurement

This number is probably too high

This score only looks at AI tools like chatbots. It doesn't look at robots at all — and this job rates 57 out of 100 for how hands-on it is, which is exactly where robots come in.

Have a look at the tasks below and judge for yourself. The ILO scored them low because a chatbot can't do them. Whether a machine with hands could is a different question, and we can't answer it yet.

The tasks behind the score

The score is the average of these. A job is really a bundle of tasks, and an average can hide how uneven that bundle is.

The task AI could do most of scores 61.5, while the average is 24.9. A big gap means some of this job is wide open to AI and some of it barely at all. That's quite different from a job where everything sits somewhere in the middle, even when the averages match.

  1. 61.5

    Responding to passengers requests and complaints and providing information about stops and connections

    Medium
  2. 46.3

    Collecting and issuing tickets, passes or fares, and checking the validity of tickets issued previously

    Low
  3. 29

    Greeting passengers boarding transportation equipment, and announcing routes and stops.

    Low
  4. 23

    Ensuring that safety regulations are respected

    Very Low
  5. 20

    Performing equipment safety checks prior to departure

    Very Low
  6. 17.5

    Attending to sleeping-cars and their occupants on passenger trains

    Very Low
  7. 17.5

    Signalling to drivers to stop or proceed

    Very Low
  8. 13.5

    Providing assistance with boarding, seating and luggage as required, especially to elderly, sick, or injured people

    Very Low
  9. 11.8

    Taking appropriate action in case of emergencies or accidents.

    Very Low
  10. 9.3

    Opening and closing doors for passengers

    Very Low

10 tasks · the High to Very Low labels are the ILO's

from the source Working Paper 140, Generative AI and Jobs 2025 index data 0.7-work-setting

Helped, or replaced?

The score above can't tell a tool that makes you faster from one that does the task instead of you. Jobs and Skills Australia looked at those two things separately, and this is their result, matched to this job.

One Australian job matches this one closely, so this is about as reliable as it gets here.

AI helps you
52
AI does it for you
49

Helping wins by 3 points.

estimated Our Gen AI Transition (Gen AI Capacity Study) September 2025 detailed data release data 0.7-work-setting matched to Australian jobs 6394

Compared with similar jobs

There are 39 jobs in the “Service and sales workers” group, averaging 74.4. This one is above that.