FMCSA Opens Recruiting for Its Hours-of-Service Flexibility Pilots — a 6-Week Pre-Test Before the Real Study Begins

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration's March 2, 2026 newsroom notice is a recruiting call, not the study itself: FMCSA wants 18 drivers — nine for each of two pilots — to run a six-week pre-test before the full-scale Flexible Sleeper Berth and Split Duty Period pilot programs launch.

The two pilots test different edges of the hours-of-service clock. The Split Duty Period pilot targets drivers whose routes routinely run them up against the 14-hour on-duty window; it lets them pause that window for 30 minutes to three hours by taking an extra break — off-duty, in the sleeper berth, or on-duty-not-driving at a cargo location — before resuming the clock where they left off. The Flexible Sleeper Berth pilot targets drivers already using split sleeper-berth options under the current 8/2 or 7/3 split rules, and tests two additional configurations: a 6/4 split and a 5/5 split, both counted toward the 10-hour off-duty requirement.

Both pilots sit inside what FMCSA and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy have branded the Pro-Trucker Package, and both trace back to Executive Order 14286 on reducing trucking-regulation burden. The agency has contracted the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute to run the research, and the pre-test recruiting notice is explicit about sequencing: the 18-driver, six-week pre-test exists to validate the data-collection instruments and screening criteria before FMCSA opens the door to the full pilot cohorts — 256 drivers per program, 512 participants total, running four months, with compensation up to $1,600 per driver for full completion and $600 for the pre-test phase alone.

FMCSA's public comment window on the pilot design closed in November 2025. Coverage from Overdrive and Trucksafe in the weeks after the March recruiting notice noted mixed reaction from safety advocates, who flagged that a driver combining split-duty pauses with existing flexibility provisions could theoretically stretch a workday to 17 hours before running out the clock — a scenario FMCSA's notice does not dispute so much as frame as the reason the pilot exists: to measure fatigue and safety outcomes under the flexible structure before deciding whether to propose it as a permanent rule. A full rulemaking, if the pilots support one, is not expected before 2027.

What this means for dispatch and driver scheduling

This is a research program with fewer than 20 participants right now, not a rule change — nothing here alters hours-of-service requirements for the industry today. But it's worth tracking for three reasons:

The pilot cohort is small enough to matter to specific fleets. With only 512 total slots once the full study opens, participation will skew toward carriers already coordinating with FMCSA or VTTI on safety research. A dispatcher whose drivers get selected should expect added reporting burden — the pre-test and full pilot both require detailed duty-status logging beyond standard ELD data, since VTTI needs granular fatigue and performance data to compare against the current-rule baseline.

Split Duty flexibility, if it survives the pilot, changes dispatch math on marginal loads. A driver able to pause the 14-hour window for up to three hours can absorb a detention delay or a tight dock appointment without losing the day's drive-time — that's a real capacity lever for brokers booking freight with narrow delivery windows, but only once (and if) the flexibility clears the pilot and becomes a standing option.

Watch the safety-advocate pushback closely. The "up to 17 hours" combined-flexibility scenario raised by advocates is the kind of finding that shapes whether a pilot becomes a rule or becomes a cautionary data point. If VTTI's fatigue data validates that concern, expect FMCSA to narrow the final rule's scope rather than adopt the pilot design as tested — carriers shouldn't build long-term scheduling plans around the pilot's flexibility limits as currently described.