Noise Abatement Ordinance
(NAO)

¹ The can­tons shall en­force this Or­din­ance un­less it del­eg­ates en­force­ment to the Con­fed­er­a­tion.

² If the fed­er­al au­thor­it­ies ap­ply oth­er fed­er­al laws or in­ter­na­tion­al treat­ies or de­cisions that re­late to the sub­ject mat­ter of this Or­din­ance, they shall also en­force this Or­din­ance. The co­oper­a­tion of the Fed­er­al Of­fice for the En­vir­on­ment and the can­tons is gov­erned by Art­icle 41 para­graphs 2 and 4 of the Act; stat­utory du­ties of secrecy are re­served.

³ The fol­low­ing au­thor­it­ies are re­spons­ible for en­for­cing the pro­vi­sions gov­ern­ing emis­sion lim­it­a­tion meas­ures (Art. 4, 7–9 and 12), im­prove­ments (Art. 13, 14, 16–18 and 20) and the de­term­in­a­tion and con­trol of noise ex­pos­ure levels (Art. 36, 37, 37a and 40):

for rail­way in­stall­a­tions:

DE­TEC, where the pro­vi­sions re­late to ma­jor rail­way pro­jects un­der the An­nex to the Rail­ways Act of 20 Decem­ber 1957⁴⁴ and are im­ple­men­ted by means of a plan­ning ap­prov­al pro­ced­ure,

in oth­er cases, the Fed­er­al Of­fice of Trans­port;

for civil aero­dromes:

DE­TEC, where the pro­vi­sions re­late to build­ings and in­stall­a­tions un­der Art­icle 37 of the Air Nav­ig­a­tion Act of 21 Decem­ber 1948⁴⁵ that are used for op­er­a­tion of an aero­drome and are im­ple­men­ted by means of a plan­ning ap­prov­al pro­ced­ure,

in oth­er cases, the Fed­er­al Of­fice of Civil Avi­ation;

for na­tion­al roads:

DE­TEC, where the pro­vi­sions are im­ple­men­ted by means of a plan­ning ap­prov­al pro­ced­ure,

in oth­er cases the Fed­er­al Roads Of­fice;

for na­tion­al de­fence in­stall­a­tions: the Fed­er­al De­part­ment of De­fence, Civil Pro­tec­tion and Sport;

for elec­tric­al in­stall­a­tions:

the Swiss Fed­er­al Of­fice of En­ergy in cases where the Fed­er­al In­spect­or­ate for Heavy Cur­rent In­stall­a­tions (ESTI) has been un­able to deal with ob­jec­tions from or re­solve dis­putes with the Fed­er­al au­thor­it­ies con­cerned, in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 16 para­graph 2 let­ter b of the Elec­tri­city Act of 24 June 1902⁴⁶,

in oth­er cases the ESTI;

for cable rail­way in­stall­a­tions ac­cord­ing to Art­icle 2 of the Cable Rail­ways Act of 23 June 2006⁴⁷: the Fed­er­al Of­fice of Trans­port⁴⁸.

⁴ In cases where the re­spons­ib­il­ity for or­der­ing emis­sion lim­it­a­tion meas­ures and im­prove­ments lies with the fed­er­al au­thor­it­ies, but that for noise pro­tec­tion lies with the can­ton­al au­thor­it­ies, the two au­thor­it­ies shall co­ordin­ate the ne­ces­sary meas­ures.

⁵ For na­tion­al roads, DE­TEC is also re­spons­ible for en­for­cing the pro­vi­sions gov­ern­ing sound­proof­ing meas­ures (Art. 10 and 15). It co­ordin­ates the en­force­ment of these pro­vi­sions with the sound­proof­ing meas­ures that are ar­ranged by the can­tons.⁴⁹