Logistics

For questions about how to deliver goods to/from CERN, please refer to the "PROCEDURES" section on SMB official website (link).

Note that:

  • All material you might need for your experiment has to enter CERN via the Goods Reception service. They will give you a "reception number", which will be needed to ship your material back.
    • If you temporary bring material/equipment from EU, it is advisable to ship it to CERN Prevessin Site:
       Route de l’Europe
       Building 904
       F - 01630 CERN PREVESSIN
  • The material that will enter in the accelerator area might be exposed to radiation!
    • Users should expect damages of their equipment induced by radiation.
    • The recovery of activated equipment might be delayed and/or restricted. See official procedure here.​
    • As rule of thumb, given the Swiss regulation, CERN EDMS#942170 and EDMS#942171, all material entering the accelerator area will be likely considered as radioactive by CERN RP Service.​
      • ​Equipment directly exposed to beam (within 70 cm) will be declared as radioactive (can be declassified only via gamma spectrometry)
      • Equipment not directly exposed to beam (more than 70 cm apart) will be classified as radioactive if:
        • ​measured > 0.1 uSv/h or > 10 count/s at contact
        • it might also depende on material, mass, geometry of the object (e.g. very thin elements will be anyway marked as radioactive)
        • it might also depende on the position wrt beam and beam set-up (simulations done by RP), especially for high intensity beams.
  • CLEAR is on the Meyrin (CH) site, bld. 2010.
    • ​Bringing material/equipment to Switzerland might be affected by customs formalities/fees.
    • CERN has a site in Prevessin (France) to which goods could be temporary delivered with no/minor customs formalities.

Some hint/general rules that might be helpful:

  • if you come and leave with your own equipment (e.g. by car), you must have proof of ownership of this equipment and/or declare it at arrival:
    • by asking a "authorization for the entry of private equipment into the CERN domain” to the agent in charge at the B-A-or C door at your arrival.
    • and/or by passing by the Goods Reception (bld. 194 on Meyrin site) at your arrival.
    • if you need to cross borders (i.e. you are not coming from Switzerland), and easy way to perform custom formalities might be to use a Carnet A.T.A. (link). This will allow you to cross the border(s) (following its own formal procedure) and you will be able to just enter and leave CERN with it.
      • Even in this case, it might convenient to pass by the Goods Reception (bld. 194 on Meyrin site) at your arrival.
      • At departure, it might still be convenient to create an EDH shipment request, specifying "Self transport".
  • if you ship your equipment, for all custom formalities it might be convenient to contact the agents listed at this page (link).
    • from EU it might be convenient to ship the equipment via Prevessin site. See this page (link).
  • to ship back your equipment, an EDH shipment request has to be made.
    • All material will need to leave from the site (Meyrin or Prevessin) where it first arrived.
    • It is possible to request that CERN handles all the steps, but in this case you need a CERN budget code where the shipment costs will be charged.
    • On the EDH form, you can specify that the recipient will pay the shipment. In this case the recipient has to organise the shipment. 
      • If it is a small equipment (<30 Kg), it is possible to just specify a UPS account on which charge the shipment, and CERN can take care of organising it.
      • For bigger equipment, the user has to organise the transport with an external carrier and needs to indicate on the EDH form the name and pick up date from CERN.
    • For radioactive material, the shipment request is automatically generated via TREC - the service for traceability of potential Radioactive Equipment at CERN. The responsible for the equipment will then need to fill the EDH request with all necessary informations.
      • Procedure for shipping radiactive material is available here
      • NOTE: Your institute has to be listed in the CERN database of "Approved Institutes for Importation/Exportation of Radioactive Material" . See http://cern.ch/radship
      • NOTE: if levels of radiation are low enough (See ADR 2017 2.2.7.1.1, IATA 2018 10.3.1 + 10.0.1.4 & IAEA SSR-6 2012 Art. 236) the equipment can still be delivered using standard courier - i.e. no special transport required
        • ​But your institute will still need to be registed in the radship database of CERN!