Will AI replace Tank Car, Truck, and Ship Loaders?
AI reaches little of this job’s work.
13/100
Low exposure
More exposed to AI than 24% of US workers.
- AI already used in
- 0% of the work
- As AI tools mature: up to
- 26% of the work
What the job involves
Load and unload chemicals and bulk solids, such as coal, sand, and grain, into or from tank cars, trucks, or ships, using material moving equipment. May perform a variety of other tasks relating to shipment of products. May gauge or sample shipping tanks and test them for leaks.
Where AI reaches the work
The job’s main tasks, heaviest first, by how far AI reaches them.
Within reach(4)
- Verify tank car, barge, or truck load numbers to ensure car placement accuracy based on written or verbal instructions.
- Record operating data such as products and quantities pumped, gauge readings, and operating times, manually or using computers.
- Monitor product movement to and from storage tanks, coordinating activities with other workers to ensure constant product flow.
- Copy and attach load specifications to loaded tanks.
Out of reach(15)
- Check conditions and weights of vessels to ensure cleanliness and compliance with loading procedures.
- Seal outlet valves on tank cars, barges, and trucks.
- Start pumps and adjust valves or cables to regulate the flow of products to vessels, using knowledge of loading procedures.
- Observe positions of cars passing loading spouts, and swing spouts into the correct positions at the appropriate times.
- Operate ship loading and unloading equipment, conveyors, hoists, and other specialized material handling equipment such as railroad tank car unloading equipment.
and 10 more
Also called
Loader · Loader Operator · Rail Car Loader · Tank Car Loader · Truck Loader · Barges Loader · Bulk Tank Car Unloader · Caustics Loader
Related jobs
What these numbers mean
The score is the share of this job’s work, weighted by how important and frequent each task is, that AI could do in half the time: tasks an AI model could do alone count in full, tasks that need software built on AI count half.
“AI already used” is the share of the work in tasks where people are recorded using AI today. “As AI tools mature” counts every task AI could halve, with or without extra software.
The percentile compares the score with every job’s, weighted by how many people in the US do each one. Exposure means AI could change how the work is done, not that the job goes away. These are estimates for the typical job, not predictions.
Sources
- O*NET 31.0 Database, U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration
- GPTs are GPTs: Labor market impact potential of LLMs (task labels), Eloundou, Manning, Mishkin & Rock (2023), OpenAI and University of Pennsylvania
- Anthropic Economic Index: labor market impacts (task penetration), Anthropic
- Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025 (national and metropolitan areas), U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics