Fatigue Without a Rulebook: How to Set Hours Limits for Last-Mile Van Drivers Outside FMCSA

A fatigue rule for last-mile van drivers is a company-set limit on duty hours, consecutive driving, breaks and rest between shifts for drivers whose vehicles fall outside federal hours-of-service rules. The federal limits apply to commercial motor vehicles rated at 10,001 pounds or more in interstate commerce, and many last-mile fleets run cargo vans that sit just under that line, so no federal hours limit applies to them and the state rules vary. NIOSH advises employers in that position to set their own limits on overtime and consecutive shifts, but no authority names a number for van drivers. The fleet therefore has to choose its own limits, build them into route planning and test what they cost.

Why Fatigue Limits Matter for Vans: The Business Case

The gap in the rules is wide enough that fleets decide for themselves, so the evidence matters.

• A commercial motor vehicle under 49 CFR 390.5 is a vehicle in interstate commerce with a weight rating of 10,001 pounds or more, and federal hours limits attach to that definition.
• Under 49 CFR 395.3, a driver may drive 11 hours after 10 consecutive hours off duty, may not drive after the 14th consecutive hour on duty, and needs a 30-minute interruption after eight hours of driving.
• Trade press reported in 2020 that FMCSA wrote that there appears to be a gap in safety oversight of both drivers and vehicles for delivery vehicles under 10,000 pounds.
• Texas applies the federal rules to intrastate vehicles only above 26,000 pounds, so a van between 10,001 and 26,000 pounds that stays in the state generally falls outside them.
• Williamson and Feyer found that after 17 to 19 hours awake, performance on some tests was equivalent or worse than at a blood alcohol level of 0.05%.
• The National Transportation Safety Board’s study of 182 heavy-truck crashes that were fatal to the driver found fatigue in 31% of them, in a sample chosen for likely fatigue and so not a national rate.

NIOSH recommends that employers set overtime limits and maximum consecutive shifts and adopt a fatigue risk management system, without naming numbers. California’s rules are ambiguous for two-axle vans, so check your own states.

How to Set Fatigue Limits for Van Drivers in Six Steps

The six steps turn a missing rule into a limit that planners can honor.

1. Establish who is covered by what

For each vehicle, check its weight rating, whether it runs interstate and which state rules apply. Drivers of vehicles at or above 10,001 pounds in interstate commerce follow the federal limits, and the rest follow your policy plus any state rules.

2. Look at your own data by hour of shift

Group your near-misses, harsh-braking events, damage claims and late stops by hours into the shift and by consecutive days worked. Your fleet’s own pattern is stronger evidence than any single study.

3. Choose the limits that matter

Set a maximum duty window, a maximum of consecutive driving, a break after a set period, a minimum rest between shifts and a maximum number of consecutive days. Write the exceptions process at the same time.

4. Build the limits into planning

Make the limits constraints in route planning, so no route is created that breaks them, and do not rely on dispatchers to catch a breach after the plan is made.

5. Price the limit

Run the plan with the proposed cap and with the next cap up and down, and compare cost per stop and vehicles needed. The cost comes in steps, and some limits cost almost nothing in your network while the next one up costs a vehicle.

6. Review and communicate

Share the limits with drivers, track breaches and exceptions, and review the numbers every quarter against incidents.

Federal Rule, State Rule and Company Policy: Key Differences

What to Look for in Planning and Dispatch Software

Hours as hard planning constraints

The software should treat your duty window and break rules as constraints on route creation, not as warnings after the fact.

Break placement in the route

Breaks should be placed in the plan with the stops, so a driver is not asked to take one at an infeasible point.

Visibility of actual hours

Look for planned versus actual duty hours by driver and route, so you can see who runs long and why.

Exception workflow

When a limit would be breached, the system should surface it with options, such as reassigning stops, and record who approved any exception.

Scenario testing

You should be able to run the plan with a different cap and see the effect on vehicles and cost before changing the policy.

Fatigue Limits in Action: Real-World Results

What the research says about hours into a shift. The evidence is mixed. Lin, Jovanis and Yang found in 1993, using one less-than-truckload carrier’s 1984 data, that crash risk was lowest in the first four hours, then rose roughly 65% by hour 7, 80% at hour 8 and 150% at hour 9. A later FMCSA-funded study by Jovanis and colleagues, described in congressional testimony, found risk rising after the fifth hour and short breaks reducing risk by 20% to 50%, though its hour-11 estimate rested on few observations. A naturalistic study of 97 drivers by Blanco and colleagues found that the risk of safety-critical events rose with both driving time and total work hours and that breaks helped. The testimony also notes that some naturalistic studies found little connection with hours-of-service rules. All of this was truck research, and none was done on delivery vans.

A cost-of-a-cap simulation on synthetic data. The setup is an assumption set and not a benchmark. A depot sits in a 10 km by 10 km dense urban area with 160 stops, 30 km/h average speed, 5 minutes of service per stop, up to 100 stops per van and all-day windows, with routes starting at 08:00. Cost is $90 per van-day plus $0.70 per km plus $28 an hour, with hours beyond eight paid at 1.5 times, and the table averages 20 random instances.

The price comes in a step. Between 10 and 12 hours the plan is the same two vans, because the longest route needed is about 11 hours. At a 9-hour cap the network needs a third van, and cost per stop rises by about $0.70, or 13%. The lesson is not that 10 hours is the right number, since the research above does not name one, but that a cap can cost nothing until it crosses the point at which a route has to be split. Run the test on your own network to find where the steps are.

A global food and beverage leader. The company runs one of the largest food and beverage distribution operations across Southeast Asia and the Middle East and North Africa, with 5,000+ vehicles dispatched a month in Thailand alone and 4,500+ riders on the driver app. Its Dispatch Agent plans routes against 250+ live constraints, and it reported 97%+ SLA adherence and a 15% improvement in rider time efficiency. The case shows planning at fleet scale, and it is not a fatigue result. Read the global FMCG case study.

A leading US home care provider. The provider’s stated objective was to raise daily visit capacity per clinician without adding headcount or extending shifts. With Locus scheduling and routing visits, clinician visits per day rose 75%, and more than 30% of scheduling time was freed. The case shows capacity gained through planning, and it does not report hours worked. Read the home care case study.

Common Fatigue Limit Mistakes to Avoid

Copying the federal limits without checking they fit vans. The federal limits were written for heavy trucks, so use them as a reference and test them against your own incident data.

Enforcing limits after the plan is made. A plan that breaks the limit forces a dispatcher to fix it in real time, which is when fatigue risk and exceptions rise.

Setting a cap without pricing it. A cap can be free or can force a van, so find out which before announcing it.

Treating one study as the answer. The research disagrees on when risk rises, so combine it with your own data and review the limit.

How Locus Approaches Driver Hours and Fatigue in Planning

Locus, the world’s first Decision-Intelligent, Agentic TMS, plans driver work as part of dispatch. Its Driver Companion App factors stops, layovers and scheduled breaks into daily task plans to support hours-of-service compliance and reduce driver fatigue, and its Route Planning System plans against 250+ real-world constraints, including driver availability.

Recognized by analysts and selected after evaluation. Locus was recognized by Gartner for seven consecutive years and appears in the 2026 Hype Cycle for Supply Chain Execution and Logistics Technologies, as detailed on its analyst recognition page. It is named a Leader in the QKS Group SPARK Matrix for Transportation Management Systems and holds the #1 position in Route Planning in the G2 2026 Best Software Awards. In October 2025, Ingka Investments, the investment arm of Ingka Group, the world’s largest IKEA retailer, acquired Locus. Ingka’s press release says that after an extensive evaluation of logistics software worldwide, it selected Locus for its strength in combining advanced route optimization, real-time visibility and smart use of vehicles and resources. Locus continues to operate independently.

What this means for your limits. Locus’s capacity management tracks driver availability across teams, applies shifts and plans around sick days and holidays, and its six governance mechanisms let your team see and override how routes are assigned. Locus has optimized 1.5B+ deliveries for 360+ enterprise customers across 30+ countries.

What to confirm. Locus’s public pages describe break and hours-of-service planning but do not state a default duty cap or whether a cap is enforced as a hard planning constraint. Ask for a demonstration in which you set a 10-hour cap, then a 9-hour cap, and compare vans, route lengths and cost on your own data.

To price your own hours limits against your routes, schedule a demo.

For operations leaders asking how to set fatigue limits for van drivers, Locus offers break and hours planning, constraint-based routing and scenario testing in one platform, so a limit is built into the plan and priced before it reaches the road.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do federal hours-of-service rules apply to cargo vans? Only if the vehicle is rated at 10,001 pounds or more and operates in interstate commerce. Freight-only cargo vans below that rating are generally outside the federal rules, and state rules vary.

What are the federal hours-of-service limits? For covered drivers, 11 hours of driving after 10 consecutive hours off duty, no driving after the 14th consecutive hour on duty, a 30-minute interruption after eight hours of driving and 60 or 70 hours in 7 or 8 days.

How many hours should a van driver work? No authority names a number for van drivers. NIOSH advises employers to set limits on overtime and consecutive shifts, so set limits from your own incident data and the research, and test the cost.

Does risk rise with hours into a shift? Research suggests so, but the evidence is mixed. One study found risk rising roughly 65% by hour 7, another found it rising after the fifth hour, and breaks reduced risk by 20% to 50%. All of it concerned trucks and not vans.

Is fatigue a major cause of crashes? The NTSB found fatigue in 31% of a sample of 182 heavy-truck crashes fatal to the driver, which was chosen for likely fatigue. FARS coded fatigue in a far smaller share of fatal truck crashes, so rates depend heavily on method.

Does Locus enforce a duty-hour limit? Locus’s driver app plans breaks and layovers to support hours-of-service compliance, but its public pages do not state a default cap. Ask for a demonstration with your own limits.