Radiological Protection Ordinance (RPO) (RPO)
English is not an official language of the Swiss Confederation. This translation is provided for information purposes only and has no legal force.
Chapter 1 Purpose, Scope and Definitions
Art. 1 Purpose and scope
1 For the protection of people and the environment against ionising radiation, this Ordinance regulates: for planned exposure situations: licences, public exposure, unjustified activities, medical exposure, occupational exposure, handling of radiation sources, handling of radioactive waste, prevention and management of failures; for emergency exposure situations: preparedness and management; for existing exposure situations: management of radiological legacies, radon, naturally occurring radioactive material and long‑term contamination following an emergency; training and continuing education of persons handling ionising radiation or radioactivity; supervision and enforcement; advisory activities of the Federal Commission for Radiological Protection (KSR). 2 It applies to all exposure situations for artificial and for natural ionising radiation. 3 It does not apply to: a. exposures to radionuclides naturally present in the human body; b. exposures to cosmic radiation; it does, however,
Art. 2 Definitions
1 In this Ordinance: planned exposure situation means an exposure situation which arises from the planned operation of a radiation source or from a human activity which alters exposure pathways, so as to cause the exposure or potential exposure of people or the environment; emergency exposure situation means an exposure situation due to an emergency, as defined in Article 132; c. existing exposure situation means an exposure situation that already exists when a decision on its control has to be taken and which does not call or no longer calls for urgent measures to be taken; this involves, in particular, radiological legacies, radon, naturally occurring radioactive material and long‑term contamination following an emergency; d. occupational exposure means exposure due to occupational activities; occupational exposure may involve employees, self-employed persons, apprentices and students; e. medical exposure means the exposure of patients or asymptomatic individuals for diagnostic or th
Para. 1 let. h — Footnote relevant to Swiss language texts.
Chapter 2 Principles of Radiological Protection
Art. 3 Justification
An activity is justified within the meaning of Article 8 of the Radiological Protection Act (RPA) if: a. the associated benefits clearly outweigh the radiation-related drawbacks; and b. overall, for people and the environment, no more favourable alternative is available involving no or lower radiation exposure.
Art. 4 Optimisation
1 Radiological protection must be optimised for all exposure situations. 2 Optimisation involves reducing as far as possible and reasonable: a. the likelihood of exposure; b. the number of people exposed; c. the individual dose to the persons exposed.
Art. 5 Dose limits
For planned exposure situations, limits shall be specified which must not be exceeded by the sum of all radiation doses accumulated by a person in a calendar year (dose limit). For medical exposures, no such limits shall be specified.
Art. 6 Reference levels
1 If in existing exposure situations or in emergency exposure situations the dose limits cannot be complied with, or if in these situations compliance with the dose limits would involve disproportionate efforts or would be counterproductive, then reference levels shall be applied. 2 To ensure that the reference level can be complied with, the requisite measures must be taken.
Art. 7 Dose constraints
1 For planned exposure situations, the dose received by a person from a single radiation source or activity shall be specified (dose constraint). This dose constraint shall be specified for each radiation source in such a way that the sum of all doses received from the various radiation sources does not exceed the dose limit. 2 The licence holder shall specify the dose constraints for the occupationally exposed persons within the enterprise. 3 The licensing authority (Art. 11) shall decide whether source-related dose constraints are required for the public and shall specify these in the licence. If this has not been done in the case of activities already licensed, the supervisory authority (Art. 184) may specify source-related dose constraints. 4 Dose constraints are optimisation instruments. When defining dose constraints, the current state of science and technology must be taken into account. 5 If a dose constraint is exceeded, measures must be taken.
Art. 8 Risk-based graded approach
All radiological protection measures must be graduated according to the underlying risk.
