The color of the workwear for rail workers will change from yellow to orange from 1 July 2019, according to the Rail Alert foundation. The organization that is working safely on the railway tracks responds to noise from the rail sector to also wear orange safety clothing from now on, as is also the case in the construction sector.

 

To ensure safety during rail work, precautions are taken. One of those measures is signaling clothing. This makes rail workers more visible. Rijkswaterstaat prescribes orange when working on the public highway, but railway workers wear yellow.

 

Research

Research has been carried out into the visibility of signaling work clothing of employees along the track. This showed that the visibility of the personnel is mainly determined by background and is not related to the color.

 

“Yellow and orange both meets the visibility requirements and there is no (inter) national standard setting with regard to the mandatory use of one color,” explains Marcel Edwards of Rail Alert. “But from the industry it has been indicated that they want to switch to orange to connect with the construction sector, but also at European level.” In countries such as Germany, they also use orange-red workwear.

 

Another consideration was the fact that many contractors do not only have projects in the rail sector, but also in construction. “Sometimes they wear yellow work clothes one day and the next orange. So for uniformity, we change the color to orange. ”

 

Change

The change applies to both the Peoria track and the local track managed by HTM, RET, GVB and PUOV. Other parties, such as transport companies, do not pass. Safety officers who exercise authority over others or who are responsible for collision risk wear yellow clothing with reflective materials. These are workplace safety leader (LWB), the local safety officer (LLV), the safety officer (VHM), the border guard (GRW) and the field service supervisor (BBD).

 

From January 1, 2019, a transitional period of six months will start. During this period, it is allowed to wear orange clothing with a yellow reflective vest over it.