Highway Maintenance Workers
Maintain highways, municipal and rural roads, airport runways, and rights-of-way. Duties include patching broken or eroded pavement and repairing guard rails, highway markers, and snow fences. May also mow or clear brush from along road, or plow snow from roadway.
154,960 people do this job in the US. $50,260 a year.
of the working time. Estimate.
- 0%
- 0%
- 100%
Measured, from Anthropic's usage data (2025). Counts help on part of a task.
On the chosen pace and reliability. Estimate.
Share of the working time within reach, now to 2030
What each choice means: , , , , . Every pace starts from .
At this date and pace, models finish tasks up to 4.4 h long four times in five.
How far this has come
With GPT-4, measured in March 2023, 0% of this job's working time was within reach at . With Claude 3.7 Sonnet, measured in February 2025, 0%. With Claude Mythos Preview (early), measured in April 2026, 0%. Today's estimate: 0%.
A backcast: today's task data with the best model METR had measured by each date. It shows how fast the models have moved, not what anyone forecast at the time.
The tasks
Sorted by . 19 tasks from .
| Task | Kind | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Drive heavy equipment and vehicles with adjustable attachments to sweep debris from paved surfaces, mow grass and weeds, remove snow and ice, and spread salt and sand.Done more than weekly by most who do it. | 22% | 2.5 h50 min to 5 h | Stays with people | |
| Clean and clear debris from culverts, catch basins, drop inlets, ditches, and other drain structures.Done daily by most who do it. | 10% | 1.3 h25 min to 3.3 h | Stays with people | |
| Inspect, clean, and repair drainage systems, bridges, tunnels, and other structures.Done more than monthly by most who do it. | 10% | 3.3 h50 min to 6.7 h | Stays with people | |
| Dump, spread, and tamp asphalt, using pneumatic tampers, to repair joints and patch broken pavement.Done daily by most who do it. | 10% | 1.7 h38 min to 3.3 h | Stays with people | |
| Haul and spread sand, gravel, and clay to fill washouts and repair road shoulders.Done more than weekly by most who do it. | 9% | 2.5 h50 min to 5 h | Stays with people | |
| Erect, install, or repair guardrails, road shoulders, berms, highway markers, warning signals, and highway lighting, using hand tools and power tools.Done daily by most who do it. | 6% | 2.5 h50 min to 5 h | Stays with people | |
| Set out signs and cones around work areas to divert traffic.Done daily by most who do it. | 6% | 25 min17 min to 50 min | Stays with people | |
| Perform preventative maintenance on vehicles and heavy equipment.Done daily by most who do it. | 6% | 1.3 h25 min to 2.5 h | Stays with people | |
| Drive trucks to transport crews and equipment to work sites.Done daily by most who do it. | 5% | 38 min17 min to 1.3 h | Stays with people | |
| Flag motorists to warn them of obstacles or repair work ahead.Done daily by most who do it. | 4% | 25 min13 min to 1.3 h | Stays with people | |
| Perform roadside landscaping work, such as clearing weeds and brush, and planting and trimming trees.Done more than yearly by most who do it. | 4% | 2.5 h50 min to 5 h | Stays with people | |
| Measure and mark locations for installation of markers, using tape, string, or chalk.Done more than yearly by most who do it. | 3% | 33 min13 min to 1.3 h | Stays with people |
Within reach, per task: the share of the task's time whose instances are short enough for a model to finish at the chosen date, pace and reliability. Half by: the date half of that time comes within reach.
Jobs that share skills with this one
From O*NET's related occupations. Within reach now and by the end of 2028, long-run pace, four in five.
- Operating Engineers and Other Construction Equipment Operators9% now, 9% by 2028
- Paving, Surfacing, and Tamping Equipment Operators0% now, 0% by 2028
- Rail-Track Laying and Maintenance Equipment Operators0% now, 0% by 2028
- Pile Driver Operators0% now, 0% by 2028
- Septic Tank Servicers and Sewer Pipe Cleaners6% now, 6% by 2028
- Construction Laborers2% now, 2% by 2028
Where this job works
The industry groups that employ the most of it (BLS, May 2025).
Where the most of these jobs are
The metro areas with the most people in it (BLS, May 2025).