Rank: Forum user 
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Can anyone provide some guidance on the specific requirements for the differing colours of PPE clothing.
To the best of my knowledge both the rail and quarrying industries insist on clothing being orange in colour. Can't find anything to say why other than their own preference and is generally accepted practice.
Working on highways the hi-viz clothing must consist of long sleeves and trousers and until today thought these could be yellow but now being told by a national road maintenance company that we must wear orange?.
On construction sites, the predominant colour has always been yellow with often only a vehicle banksman permitted to wear orange for ease of identification.
Only point I can find under HSE is that the colour should be selected to best contrast against the background of the working environment.
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Rank: Super forum user
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Please refer to HSE Guidance on High visibility clothing at:- http://www.hse.gov.uk/wo.../factsheets/clothing.htmHV clothing should be manufactured to a recognised standard. The British Standard for high visibility warning clothing is BS EN 471. This is a harmonised European standard produced with the legal requirements for PPE in mind. Clothing which conforms to the standard is marked with a pictogram The first number (X) indicates the class of conspicuity, this depends on the minimum area of conspicuous materials that are incorporated into the clothing, with Class 3 being the best and Class 1 the lowest; the second number (Y) indicates the retroreflection performance with Class 2 being more visible than Class 1 when seen in headlights during darkness. The standard gives specifications for coveralls, jackets, waistcoats, tabards, trousers and harnesses. http://solutions.3m.co.u...;blobAttribute=ImageFile
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Rank: Super forum user 
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Kevin, I think you have answered your own question and Jay has provided some valuable additional information. I understand that there are also other colours available that conform to 471.
I don't know about the quarry industry but orange is used on railways in 'preference' to yellow as I understand that yellow can be mistaken as a green ,light to train drivers.
I am not aware of anything in the various 'traffic management' guidance that requires orange.
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Rank: Super forum user
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its all down to what the client wants and noting else so providing that the PPE conforms to an appropriate standard the colours do not really matter
I know clients who want different colours for different contractors on the same site -its all to do with knowing what is going on as they can identify immediately somebody who is in a place that they should not be and things like that
it would be nice if we had a common standard/procedure but that will not happen
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Rank: Super forum user 
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The orange on railways is mandated by Network Rail in GO/RT3279 as "The target colour of new background material shall be fluorescent orange with chromaticity and luminance defined as follows" and then there's a table with chromaticity x = 0.588, chromaticity y = 0.371 and minimum luminance factor 0.588. So no other colour would be acceptable on a railway.
There is actually a specified tolerance band for chromaticity, but it's not very wide.
BS EN ISO 20471 specifies three colours (again with chromaticity indices), so if a client has a preference for something else they could have it, but it probably couldn't be described as high visibility clothing - certainly not high visibility to 471.
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