Background material: Colored fluorescent material intended to be highly conspicuous, but not intended to comply with the requirements of this standard for retroreflective material.
Retroreflective material: Material that reflects and returns a relatively high proportion of light in a direction close to the direction from which it came.
Combined-performance material: A retroreflective material that is also a fluorescent material.
Declaration of Conformity: A statement by the manufacturer or supplier, based on a decision following review, that fulfillment of the requirements specified in this standard has been demonstrated. (Appendix D3)
High Visibility Safety Apparel (HVSA): Personal protective safety clothing intended to provide conspicuity during both daytime and nighttime, and other low-light condition usage.
High Visibility Accessory: A high-visibility item or items that can help define the human form and, when combined with movement, enhance nighttime conspicuity.
Photometric Performance: The effectiveness of retroreflective material in returning light to its source and measured in terms of coefficient of retroreflection.
Flame Resistance: The property of a material whereby flaming combustion is prevented, terminated, or inhibited following application of a flaming or non-flaming source of ignition with or without subsequent removal of the ignition source.
Roadway: An area designed, or ordinarily used for the purposes of vehicular travel.
Accredited laboratory: A laboratory having a certificate of accreditation meeting the requirements ISO/IEC 17025:2005 General requirements for the competence of testing and calibration laboratories for the collection and analysis of data within the parameters of this standard.
The ANSI/ISEA 107-2015 standard provides design guidelines and specifies the photometric requirements, minimum amounts of component materials, colors, and placement to create garments and headwear for the purpose of enhancing the visibility of workers. Refer to Section 6 of the standard for more detailed information. The selection of components and classes of apparel should be made based upon what is appropriate for the hazard and with the safety of the worker in mind.
There are three different colors for background and combined-performance material from which to choose: fluorescent yellow-green, fluorescent orange-red and fluorescent red. Users should consider the work and natural environment to determine the most conspicuous color for daytime use. Is the environment urban or rural, heavy foliage or desert? Are work zone devices and equipment yellow or orange? Choose the fluorescent color that achieves the highest degree of worker contrast.
Three type designations for high visibility safety apparel are new to the ANSI 107-2015 standard. These types will help the user to choose options according to work environment. This also made it easier to combine ANSI 107 with the previous ANSI 207 classification and still keep the public safety options separate from other occupational garments. The types are further broken down into classes 1, 2 or 3.
Type “O” garments are for occupational workers who are not required by MUTCD 2009 to wear high visibility safety apparel, but may still work in an environment with moving equipment/vehicles and accompanying struck-by hazards, and visibility is a concern.
Type “R” garments are for occupational workers who are exposed to roadway traffic and who work in an environment with moving equipment/vehicles. This type designation and the classes within it now describe and make up the PPE that is federally mandated per the MUTCD 2009.
Type “P” garments are derived from the previous ANSI 207 standard. This type designation gives additional options for fire, police, and EMS personnel who have other potential hazards that require them to access equipment on their person. Type P garments differ from type R garments mainly in the
area requirements for background material.
Three classes of high-visibility safety apparel help the user to choose the proper garments based on expected work environment risks. The classes state the minimum amount of background and retroreflective material and specify the placement of retroreflective material as well as any technical
requirements for garment design.
Class 1 and 2 garments, such as vests and T-shirts, and Class 3 garment configurations, such as a vest with Class E pants ensembles, coveralls, outerwear and rainwear should achieve the following:
Section 8 of the standard provides specifications for color, brightness, fabric strength, and moisture resistance after various exposure tests.
- Background and Combined-Performance material needs to be tested for chromaticity /color and luminance and/or brightness without preconditioning; and again for colorfastness after standard cleaning processes and Xenon (UV light) exposure. Table 3 in Section 8 is now the requirement for both background and combined-performance materials.
- Background materials must also be tested for colorfastness after crocking and perspiration tests.
- Other tests for background materials include testing for dimensional change (shrinking) after washing and dry-cleaning, tensile strength, tear resistance, bursting strength of woven material and bursting strength of knitted material.
- If the garment is intended to provide protection during rainfall, background materials also need to be tested as water repellent, water resistant, and /or water proof. See Section 8.5 of the standard for updated definitions.
The standard specifies photometric and physical performance requirements for retroreflective and combined-performance materials.
Once all materials have been tested against performance requirements and certificates of compliance
from a third party testing laboratory have been issued, apparel manufacturers then assemble garments
according to the design guidelines in Section 6 of the standard for the appropriate type and class of
garment. Only after all the materials’ performance and design requirements have been met, can a
garment be labeled ANSI/ISEA 107-2015 compliant. Care labeling, general marking and instructions for
use are described in Sections 11 to 13 of the standard.
Marking includes, at a minimum, the following information:
- Manufacturer’s name or other means of identification.
- Item number or other identification of the specific style of product.
- Size.
- This ANSI/ISEA standard name including year (ANSI/ISEA 107-2015).
- Compliance with flame resistance can be indicated in one of 2 ways:
- 1) The letters “FR” on the label followed by the designation of the ASTM or NFPA standard specification from the list of allowed standards in Section 10.5.
- 2) Garments which fully meet the third party certification requirements to NFPA 1977, or 2112, may use the separate label indicated by the NFPA standard to indicate FR compliance.
- If garment is not flame resistant, label must include the statement, “This garment is not flame resistant as defined by ANSI/ISEA 107-2015.”
- Pictogram showing the garment Type, Class and Level of performance for the retroreflective material. Universal pictogram can be used or a pictogram that represents the garment being labeled.
- Maximum number of wash processes (i.e.: Max 50).