US.Department 1200 New Jersey Ave., SE
of Transportation Washington, D.C. 20590

Federal Highway
Administration November 12, 2015

An open letter to all in the highway safety hardware and roadside design community:

The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) has updated the Federal-aid reimbursement
eligibility process for safety hardware devices. The revisions include those items listed in Tony
Furst’s May 18, 2015 letter as well as additional improvements. This letter serves to notify you
that these changes take effect immediately. These improvements will enhance the quality of the
information available to FHWA when we are evaluating a request for eligibility, increase our
transparency, and move the Nation closer to the next generation of life-saving roadside
hardware.

The description of the process, which can be found on our website, has been streamlined and
restructured to better reflect the steps for requesting a federal-aid reimbursement eligibility letter.
Some highlights of the changes include:

MASH testing requirements. As noted in our Federal Register Notice, after December 31,
2015, FHWA will not accept requests for Federal-aid eligibility determinations for any
modifications based on previous crash testing performed using NCHRP Report 350 criteria.
Changes to any existing NCHRP 350 tested device will require testing using MASH criteria to
receive a Federal-aid reimbursement eligibility letter.

Notification of modifications. Manufacturers must notify FHWA and request continued
eligibility for Federal-aid reimbursement if any change is made to hardware with an existing
Federal-aid eligibility letter. The process explains the documentation required for significant and
non-significant changes.

Additional submittal information. FHWA is requiring additional information with requests for
eligibility, to improve transparency. For all future requests, the submitter must include
disclosure of financial interests in the device, or the manufacturer of the device, by the testing
facility and testing facility employees. Further, information in a submission that are considered
trade secrets or confidential business information must be clearly labeled as such. FHWA is
dedicated to an open and transparent process and will post as much information as is feasible for
each eligibility letter.

Eligibility letter. The FHWA letter may list issues that arise during testing that the testing
criteria identifies as reportable, even if such issues do not represent test failure.


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FHWA retains the right to modify or revoke a letter for a variety of issues relating to the testing,
the test report, in-service performance evaluations, system modifications or other information.

Thank you in advance for helping FHWA implement these important process improvements. I
am sure you will agree that they will increase the transparency of the FHWA service to the States
with regard to determining Federal-aid reimbursement eligibility for safety hardware devices.
Further, these improvements will enhance the safety of roadside hardware, and help us reach our
vision of zero fatalities.

If you have any questions or comments, please contact Brian Fouch at (202) 366-0744.

Sincerely yours,

Elizabeth Alicandri
Acting Associate Administrator for Safety