High-visibility clothing for tree work near roads: the standards by country

Regulators, road agencies and standards bodies each say something about high-visibility clothing for people working on or beside roads. Most of these rules are written for road work zones, traffic control or construction projects and not for tree work as a whole, so each rule below is listed with the group it applies to. The guide on safety rules by country covers the wider rules, and the guide on chainsaw protection covers saw gear.

United States

The federal traffic manual

The Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices (MUTCD), 11th Edition, is the national standard for traffic control devices. The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) says a final rule adopting it took effect on January 18, 2024, and that states must adopt it as their legal state standard within two years of that date. Under the federal rule at 23 CFR 655.603, the MUTCD is the national standard for every traffic control device on any street, highway or bicycle trail open to public travel. That definition leaves out roads inside private gated properties where access is restricted at all times, and parking areas and the driving aisles inside them.

Part 1 of the MUTCD says it applies to facilities open to public travel whether they are public or private and whatever the source of funding. Part 6 covers traffic control for construction, maintenance, utility and incident management operations on a street, highway, pathway or site roadway open to public travel. It defines a work zone as an area of a highway with construction, maintenance or utility work activities.

What section 6C.05 says

Section 6C.05 of Part 6, titled High-Visibility Safety Apparel, is the rule. It has three parts that matter here.

Who. For daytime and nighttime activity, all workers, including emergency responders, within the right-of-way who are within the temporary traffic control zone. Part 1 defines a worker as a person on foot whose duties place them within the right-of-way of a street, highway or pathway, such as construction and maintenance forces, survey crews and utility crews.
What. Apparel that meets Performance Class 2 or 3 of ANSI/ISEA 107-2015, or equivalent revisions. A person designated by the employer to be responsible for worker safety makes the selection of the class of garment.
Colour. The background material is fluorescent orange-red, fluorescent yellow-green or a combination of the two. The retroreflective material is orange, yellow, white, silver, yellow-green or a fluorescent version of those colours.

For flaggers at night, the same section gives guidance that the apparel meet Performance Class 3. Part 6 also says a trained person designated by the employer should do a basic hazard assessment of the worksite.

The old federal rule

Until the final rule below took effect on January 15, 2010, 23 CFR part 634 required high-visibility apparel for workers within the right-of-way of a Federal-aid highway who were exposed to traffic or to construction equipment. The FHWA's final rule of December 16, 2009 removed part 634. It said the requirements were already in the MUTCD and so applied to all roads open to public travel, not just Federal-aid highways.

What ANSI/ISEA 107 types and classes mean

ANSI/ISEA 107 is a voluntary standard from the International Safety Equipment Association (ISEA). The ISEA says the 2015 edition set three garment types.

Type	Intended for	Classes
O, off-road	Workers not exposed to highway traffic or temporary traffic control zones	Class 1
R, roadway	Workers exposed to traffic from public rights-of-way or roadway temporary traffic control zones	Class 2 or 3
P, public safety	Emergency and incident responders and law enforcement	Class 2 or 3

The ISEA's FAQ says Class 1 gives the minimum amount of material to set the wearer apart in a non-complex work environment, and that Class 3 offers greater visibility against complex backgrounds and through a full range of body movement. It gives the minimum background material for Class 2 as 775 square inches, or 540 square inches for the smallest size. It says Class E items cannot be worn alone to meet a high-visibility requirement, but worn with a Class 2 or 3 garment the set counts as Class 3.

Canada

Workplace safety law is provincial, and no single Canadian rule covers every road worker. The standard behind the rules is CSA Z96, High-visibility safety apparel. CSA says its fourth edition, Z96:22, is designed to be in technical harmony with ANSI/ISEA 107 and ISO 20471, and adds requirements for bib-style overalls. The British Columbia regulation below names the 2015 edition.

British Columbia

The WorkSafeBC OHS Regulation Part 8 has two rules in section 8.24.

A worker exposed to vehicles or mobile equipment travelling faster than 30 km/h must wear high-visibility apparel that meets Class 2 or Class 3 of CSA Z96-15.
A worker exposed to vehicles or mobile equipment travelling at 30 km/h or less must wear apparel that meets Class 1, 2 or 3.

The section does not apply to certain firefighters, to some emergency medical and police personnel wearing modified Class 2 apparel, or to traffic control persons.

Ontario

Ontario's construction regulation, O. Reg. 213/91, writes the garment out feature by feature instead of naming a CSA class. Section 69.1 says a worker who may be endangered by vehicular traffic wears a garment covering at least the upper body with these features.

Fluorescent blaze or international orange colour.
Two retroreflective and fluorescent yellow stripes 5 centimetres wide on the front and the back, totalling at least 500 square centimetres on the front and 570 square centimetres on the back.
At night, retroreflective silver stripes round each arm and leg, or side-visibility stripes of at least 50 square centimetres per side.

Ontario's Ministry of Labour, Immigration, Training and Skills Development says on its construction guidance page that section 69.1 applies to any worker who may be endangered by any type of vehicular traffic on a construction project, and that a vest worn open does not meet it.

What the CSA classes mean

The Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety (CCOHS) explains that CSA classes are set by body coverage, unlike ANSI's minimum material areas. Class 1 gives the lowest recognized coverage, with 0.14 square metres of background material for a harness-style garment. Classes 2 and 3 need full background coverage, and Class 3 adds stripes round both arms and both legs. CCOHS says Class 3 gives the greatest coverage and visibility in poor light and at distance. It lists roadway construction, utility, forestry and railway workers in one example group, and adds that the standard gives job examples but does not set requirements for specific jobs. The page is the CCOHS high-visibility safety apparel page.

United Kingdom

The main road-works document is the Safety at Street Works and Road Works code of practice, published by the Department for Transport in 2011 with a 2013 code. It applies on highways and roads except all motorways and any dual carriageway with a speed limit of 50 mph or more. It covers works carried out by or for highway authorities and statutory undertakers. The code says that, with the exception of Scottish roads authorities, failure to comply is a criminal offence.

High-visibility clothing must conform to the relevant current British or European standards, and must be worn when operating outside the working space, for example when setting out, maintaining or removing signing, lighting, guarding and temporary traffic control.
In England and Northern Ireland, the standard required should be set by a risk assessment, which in most cases for work outside the working space is likely to point to a jacket with the greatest minimum amount of visible material.
In Scotland and Wales, jackets must have full-length sleeves, which a risk assessment may vary to three-quarter length.

Part 2 of Chapter 8 of the Traffic Signs Manual, from 2009, is written for those who plan, manage and take part in traffic management operations at road works. It says the workforce and site supervisory staff must wear high-visibility clothing at all times on site, to BS EN 471 Class 2 or 3, with Class 3 on motorways or other high-speed roads. It sets fluorescent yellow or fluorescent orange-red as the normal colour and full-length sleeves on high-speed roads. It adds Class 1 trousers where large items of equipment may hide the jacket. Its text is in the Traffic Signs Manual Chapter 8 Part 2. BS EN 471 was the older standard. Part 3 of the same chapter, updated in 2020, lists BS EN ISO 20471:2013 among its standards.

ISO says ISO 20471:2013 specifies requirements for high-visibility clothing capable of visually signalling the user's presence, with performance requirements for colour, retroreflection, and the minimum areas and placement of materials. The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) construction page says temporary traffic management workers need a higher standard because public vehicles move nearby faster than most construction plant, so the requirement includes a long-sleeved jacket and high-visibility trousers. It says employers provide the clothing free.

Australia

Road work rules are set state by state. Transport for NSW (TfNSW) published Technical Standard TS 05492:1.0, Traffic Control at Work Sites, effective June 25, 2026. It says it applies to temporary traffic management for roadwork and other activities on all public roads in NSW, and lists mobile works such as line marking, grass cutting or tree trimming among its examples. The download sits on the TfNSW standard page.

Traffic control workers and all other workers or visitors on a site, including auditors and trainees, wear personal protective equipment.
High-visibility garments comply with relevant Australian standards and suit the task, time of day and weather, such as daytime, dusk, night, fog or rain.
All traffic controllers working in NSW wear high-visibility clothing with the words Traffic Controller as a badge or printed on the garment.

The garment standard is AS 4602.1, High visibility safety garments, Part 1: Garments for high risk applications. Standards Australia lists the 2024 edition as covering conspicuity requirements for occupational wear by people who may be exposed to moving traffic, moving plant or equipment in high-risk situations, and says it excludes fire service garments. Its store page marks AS 4602.1:2011 as superseded. The page lists AS/NZS 1906.4:2023, Retroreflective materials and devices for road traffic control purposes, Part 4: High-visibility materials for safety garments, among the standard's cited references.

New Zealand

The NZ Transport Agency Waka Kotahi's New Zealand Guide to Temporary Traffic Management (NZGTTM), published in April 2023, says it is not a mandatory code of practice. It is for persons conducting a business or undertaking, called PCBUs, that fund, plan or take part in activities on or near roads, and for any PCBU or transport practitioner involved in road or roadside activity at any point in the contracting chain. On clothing it says high-visibility clothing is important at temporary traffic management sites but, as the hierarchy of controls shows, is the least effective risk control. It points to Waka Kotahi Specification E06 for the garment details.

Specification E06:2023 is written for manufacturers, designers and suppliers of garments for temporary traffic management in New Zealand. The NZ Transport Agency's E06 page says garment labels must show compliance with AS/NZS 1906.4 for the material and AS 4602.1 for the design. The specification adds these points.

A compliant garment's design must meet both AS 4602.1 and E06, which seeks more conspicuity than AS 4602.1 alone wherever that is reasonable.
From July 1, 2024, compliance lettering reads TTMC-W23.
All retroreflective material is Class R under AS/NZS 1906.4, and Class F and Class NF background materials pass the wet weather performance test.

WorkSafe New Zealand's guideline on personal protective equipment for road and roadside work, updated August 31, 2022, lists hi-visibility clothing among the standard equipment that may be needed. It says a PCBU who directs the work provides PPE to workers and cannot pass the cost on to them in full or in part.

Side by side

Country	Source and who it covers	Garment named
United States	MUTCD 6C.05: workers in a temporary traffic control zone	ANSI/ISEA 107-2015 Class 2 or 3
Canada, BC	OHS Regulation 8.24: workers exposed to vehicles or mobile equipment	CSA Z96-15 Class 2 or 3 above 30 km/h; Class 1, 2 or 3 at 30 km/h or less
Canada, Ontario	O. Reg. 213/91 s. 69.1: construction project workers endangered by traffic	Garment with listed colour and stripe features
United Kingdom	Street works code and Traffic Signs Manual: people working at road works	British or European standards; BS EN 471 Class 2 or 3 in the manual
Australia	NSW TS 05492: all workers and visitors on a traffic management site	Garments to relevant Australian standards
New Zealand	NZGTTM and E06: PCBUs on or near roads, not mandatory	AS 4602.1 design with E06, label TTMC-W23

None of these sources says that tree work as such needs a particular class. Each sets its rule for a place, such as a work zone, a road, a construction project or a traffic management site, or for a group, such as workers exposed to traffic.