Control traffic.

“Control traffic.” is a core task performed by Paving, Surfacing, and Tamping Equipment Operators. Among the occupation's 20 rated tasks, workers place it 10th by importance (#11 most important). About 86% of workers say it is relevant to their job.

This is a single occupation-specific task statement from O*NET. The figures below describe how central the task is to the job and what independent studies measure about AI and this kind of work — not a prediction that the task will be automated.

Work activities this task rolls up to

O*NET groups concrete tasks into broader work activities shared across many occupations.

• Direct vehicle traffic. in Handling and Moving Objects

AI exposure

The OpenAI / Eloundou “GPTs are GPTs” study rates this task E0. No direct exposure — current language models give little or no time savings on this task.

Exposure measures whether a model could meaningfully speed the task up — it is an estimate of overlap with model capabilities, not a measure of whether the work will be done by software. The study's intermediate score (β) for this task is 0.00. Automation potential label: T0.

Other tasks in this occupation

• Start machine, engage clutch, and push and move levers to guide machine along forms or guidelines and to control the operation of machine attachments. · importance 4.2
• Fill tanks, hoppers, or machines with paving materials. · importance 4.0
• Control paving machines to push dump trucks and to maintain a constant flow of asphalt or other material into hoppers or screeds. · importance 4.0
• Observe distribution of paving material to adjust machine settings or material flow, and indicate low spots for workers to add material. · importance 4.0
• Coordinate truck dumping. · importance 3.9
• Drive machines onto truck trailers, and drive trucks to transport machines and material to and from job sites. · importance 3.9
• Inspect, clean, maintain, and repair equipment, using mechanics' hand tools, or report malfunctions to supervisors. · importance 3.9
• Set up and tear down equipment. · importance 3.9
• Operate machines to spread, smooth, level, or steel-reinforce stone, concrete, or asphalt on road beds. · importance 3.9
• Light burners or start heating units of machines, and regulate screed temperatures and asphalt flow rates. · importance 3.7
• Place strips of material, such as cork, asphalt, or steel into joints, or place rolls of expansion-joint material on machines that automatically insert material. · importance 3.6
• Shovel blacktop. · importance 3.5
• Operate tamping machines or manually roll surfaces to compact earth fills, foundation forms, and finished road materials, according to grade specifications. · importance 3.5
• Drive and operate curbing machines to extrude concrete or asphalt curbing. · importance 3.5

See all tasks on the Paving, Surfacing, and Tamping Equipment Operators page.

Sources for this page

Every figure above traces to a named public dataset and the exact release below — not hand-written opinion. See the full methodology for what each measure does and does not mean.

• O*NET 30.3 U.S. Department of Labor / National Center for O*NET Development
• “GPTs are GPTs” (Eloundou et al.) arXiv 2303.10130 OpenAI / academic

Data compiled June 2, 2026. Figures are estimates, not advice.

@misc{singulariki-task-20143,
  title  = {Control traffic.},
  author = {{Singulariki}},
  year   = {2026},
  note   = {O*NET 30.3; “GPTs are GPTs” (Eloundou et al.) arXiv 2303.10130. Accessed June 7, 2026},
  url    = {https://singulariki.com/tasks/task-20143}
}