What Does
Type P High-Visibility Apparel Mean?
Type P high-visibility apparel is safety clothing that has been designed in accordance with ANSI/ISEA standard 107-2015 to provide increased visibility of workers who face an elevated risk of being struck by a moving vehicle.
Referred to as public safety apparel, Type P apparel must increase the visual conspicuity of workers during both the day and the night, and it is designed to provide apparel options that meet the needs of emergency and other incident-response workers in areas exposed to traffic hazards. This includes types of work such as roadway closure operations, emergency roadside response (e.g. emergency medical attention), and law enforcement operations.
Safeopedia Explains Type P High-Visibility Apparel
Both OSHA and the U.S. Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) recognize the use of Type P apparel as a way for employers of public safety workers to meet their general duty to ensure workplace safety for workers exposed to traffic hazards.
Type P clothing must provide an increase in visibility that is sufficient to be rated as either Performance Class 2 or Performance Class 3 under ANSI/ISEA standard 107-2015. Type P apparel rated as Performance Class 3 contains a greater amount of retroreflective, high-visibility material than Performance Class 2-rated apparel does. The increased visibility that Type P clothing provides is sufficient to comply with the apparel visibility standards that must be met by workers operating on a highway or other traffic-exposed context.
Clothing that meets this performance standard provides sufficient protection to distinguish workers from their surroundings on roads, highways, temporary traffic control (TTC) zones, and other contexts in which workers are regularly exposed to vehicular traffic. This is the same requirement that Type R clothing must meet. However, Type P clothing has lower background material requirements than Type R clothing does, and thus it provides public safety workers with additional options for clothing that may be more suitable to the tasks they perform as part of their job.