FMCSA Moves Hours of Service Pilots Closer to the Road

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) is advancing two pilot programs that would give truck drivers more flexibility in how they schedule work and rest under the federal Hours of Service rules (which cap how long a driver can be on duty and behind the wheel). These pilot programs are designed to test whether that added flexibility can be provided without reducing safety. Under today's rules, a driver's daily clock keeps running even when the truck is stopped for traffic, weather, or loading, which can leave a driver out of available hours before the day's route is finished.

In late August, FMCSA announced that both programs cleared pre-testing, small trial runs that shake out the study design, and are on track for a much larger rollout in 2027. Both launched in September 2025 under President Trump's Executive Order 14286, Enforcing Commonsense Rules of the Road for America's Truck Drivers, and sit within Transportation Secretary Sean P. Duffy's Pro Trucker Package, a set of initiatives aimed at improving drivers' working conditions. FMCSA is running the studies with the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute, a research partner whose involvement signals the agency intends to build on real data rather than assumption.

The Flexible Sleeper Berth pilot tests new ways to divide required rest. Today, drivers who split their off-duty time are limited to 8/2 or 7/3 arrangements (the first number is hours spent in the sleeper berth, the second a shorter break). The pilot allows additional 6/4 and 5/5 splits, as long as the two periods total at least 10 hours and one is at least five consecutive hours in the berth. The idea is to let drivers rest when they're actually tired rather than on a fixed formula.

The Split Duty Period pilot lets a driver pause the 14-hour driving window, the daily on-duty clock that legally ends the driving day once it runs out, for 30 minutes to three hours. That time has to be spent off duty, in the berth, or on duty at a pickup or delivery. It's the fix for waiting out weather or absorbing detention (the unpaid hours drivers lose waiting to load or unload) without burning down the driving day. FMCSA says it will monitor shippers to make sure the added flexibility doesn't just invite more detention, a concern worth holding the agency to.

The pre-tests were small by design: nine drivers each, six weeks, $600 apiece, run this spring and summer across carriers in Ohio, Virginia, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. Eighteen drivers can't prove these schedules are safe fleet-wide, and aren't meant to. A pre-test checks the machinery of the study, the procedures, training, and data tools, so the full pilot produces evidence a rule can actually stand on.

One honest note: flexibility is popular with drivers, but the science on split sleep isn't settled. Total sleep and its timing both shape alertness, and some earlier research tied certain split patterns to higher fatigue risk. That's not an argument against the pilots. It's the reason to run them right. A naturalistic study, which observes real drivers on real routes rather than testing them in a lab, is the right instrument for a question the lab can't answer cleanly.

The full 2027 pilots will enroll 256 drivers each, 512 total, for four months, with up to $1,600 for completing all study tasks. Carriers and drivers who want in, or just want updates, can email pilots@dot.gov.

Flexibility only improves safety if drivers know how to use it, how to read their own fatigue, and how to structure a split so total rest actually adds up. CVTA will continue to track both programs as FMCSA moves toward 2027. The industry asked for a more sensible, driver-centered approach to hours; the agency is doing the deliberate work to test whether it holds up. That's the right way to get to a better rule.