The FHWA Just Rewrote Work Zone Safety Rules. Here's What It Means for Your Agency.
The first major update to federal work zone rules in 20 years took effect in 2024. With compliance deadlines approaching, here's what transportation agencies need to know.
For two decades, the federal rules governing work zone safety stayed largely unchanged. That era ended on November 1, 2024, when the Federal Highway Administration published sweeping updates to the Work Zone Safety and Mobility Rule — the first major revision since 2004.
The rule has been in effect for over a year now. The clock is ticking on compliance. If your agency manages road construction, maintenance, or utility work, here’s what you need to know.
What Changed?
The updated rule (23 CFR Part 630 Subpart J) establishes new requirements for how states and agencies must document, assess, and improve work zone safety and mobility. The key provisions include:
1. Mandatory Programmatic Reviews
States must now perform a Work Zone Programmatic Review every five years. This isn’t a checkbox exercise — it’s a data-driven, systematic assessment of work zone safety and mobility performance across your jurisdiction.
The next review reports are due December 31, 2030.
2. A “Documented Approach” Is Now Required
The rule explicitly requires agencies to use a documented approach for:
- Selecting work zones for review
- Assessing safety and mobility impacts
- Identifying improvements to processes and procedures
In practice, this means your compliance process needs to be traceable, consistent, and defensible. Paper checklists and inconsistent field notes won’t cut it.
3. Data-Driven Assessment
Your programmatic review must include:
- Crash data (fatalities, injuries, incidents)
- Safety surrogate data (speed differentials, hard braking events)
- Operational data (speeds, travel times, queue lengths)
- Exposure data (number of projects, lane closures, vehicle-miles traveled)
States are also required to monitor performance annually — not just at the five-year review.
4. Compliance Deadline: December 31, 2026
All provisions of the updated rule must be implemented by the end of 2026. That’s less than 12 months away.
Why This Matters
Work zones are dangerous. According to FHWA data, four out of five work zone fatalities involve drivers or passengers — not workers. The human cost is real, and agencies face growing liability exposure when incidents occur.
The new rule reflects a shift in how the federal government views work zone management: from reactive to proactive, from anecdotal to data-driven, from informal to documented.
Agencies that can demonstrate a systematic approach to work zone compliance will be better positioned — both for regulatory compliance and for reducing their liability exposure.
What Should You Do Now?
1. Audit your current process. How do you document work zone compliance today? Is it consistent? Traceable? Would it hold up in court or in a federal review?
2. Identify data gaps. Do you have the crash data, operational data, and exposure data the rule requires? If not, what systems do you need to capture it?
3. Build toward 2030 — starting now. The programmatic review deadline is four years away, but the data you collect today becomes the evidence you need then. Waiting until 2029 to get your house in order isn’t a strategy.
4. Consider automation. Manual inspections are labor-intensive, inconsistent, and hard to scale. Modern tools can capture standardized, defensible compliance data without adding headcount.
How Zone Sure Can Help
At ViaSight, we built Zone Sure for exactly this moment.
Zone Sure transforms any smartphone into an AI-powered work zone compliance tool. Crews simply record a drive-through video of the work zone, and our vision models automatically evaluate:
- Lane markings and signage placement
- Traffic control device positioning
- Barrier and cone compliance
- Visibility and spacing requirements
The result: a secure dashboard with annotated imagery, compliance scores, and audit-ready documentation — captured consistently, every time.
No specialized hardware. No manual checklists. No gaps in your compliance record.
Whether you’re a state DOT preparing for 2030, a city looking to reduce liability, or a contractor who wants to demonstrate best practices, Zone Sure gives you the documented, data-driven approach the new rule demands.
Ready to see how Zone Sure can help your agency meet the new FHWA requirements? Book a Demo below or contact us directly at hello@viasight.ai