New channel for alerts Confederation wants to be able to warn the public via smartphone

In the event of incidents such as the current storms in Valais or Ticino, the Federal Office for Civil Protection (FOCP) will rely on a multi-channel strategy in future. In doing so, it is adapting alerting and informing the population to digitalization and new media habits.

In future, the Federal Office for Civil Protection will rely on a multi-channel strategy for events such as the current storms in Valais or Ticino. The aim is to adapt alerting and informing the population in crisis situations to digitalization and new media habits. The Federal Office anticipates that this will cost the Confederation around CHF 310 million between 2026 and 2035.

Informing and alerting the population is a central task of civil protection. "We can only protect the population if we warn them in good time," said Michaela Schärer, Director of the Federal Office for Civil Protection (Babs), at a media briefing in Bern on Thursday.

"However, even the best systems cannot always prevent injuries and deaths," said Schärer, referring to the current storms in Valais and Ticino. This makes it all the more important that the systems are known. In this way, risks to the population can be minimized. At present, 5,000 stationary and 2,200 mobile sirens, the radio and the Alertswiss alarm app are used to raise the alarm.

However, new technologies and changing media behavior are calling the effectiveness of existing instruments into question in some cases, the report continued. Practical examples from abroad, such as the floods in the Ahr valley in Germany or the war in Ukraine, showed that, on the one hand, the transmission of information via smartphone is essential. On the other hand, sirens also fulfilled an important function with their high reliability.

Cell broadcast to increase range

Babs therefore wants to combine a further developed core system for recording messages with the proven output channels of sirens, the Alertswiss website and app. The nationwide, highly available siren network is to be retained. The Alertswiss app and website are to be further developed, for example to provide improved accessible content in the future, the statement continued.

The alerting system is also to be expanded with a cell broadcast. Cell broadcast is a technology based on mobile phone networks to send short messages of around 500 characters per language to all cell phones within the reception range of an antenna. According to Babs, the technology should greatly increase the range of warnings and alerts, as all cell phones in the affected area can be reached with short instructions within seconds.

The focus on web- and mobile-based channels is mainly due to their superior ability to reach a large number of people with complex information, it added. Either way, all available channels should be used "as appropriate to the situation", said Christian Fuchs, Co-Head of Event Communication at the Federal Office of Communications (OFCOM).

The federal government expects the expansion of the alerting system with cell broadcast to cost 58 million francs between 2026 and 2035. The operating costs per year are estimated by the FCO at 5.2 million francs.

Equipping emergency meeting points with WLAN

At the same time, the Federal Office wants to abolish the ultra-short wave emergency radio (VHF) in shelters from 2027. This is due to the high operating costs of the current FM-based emergency radio and the "very high" investment costs of converting to DAB+, according to the Federal Office. The latter would only bring little additional benefit.

"If the entire population no longer listens to FM, there is no point in maintaining FM," said Babs Director Schärer when asked by Keystone-SDA. However, this only applies to the transmitters that are operated in the shelters. Broadcasting radio messages remains an important additional channel.

Emergency radio in its current form is indispensable in the event of an attack with weapons of mass destruction. However, it is questionable whether the stations themselves would not become the target of attacks with precision weapons in such a situation.

In contrast, Babs is planning to further develop the emergency meeting points: Experience from Ukraine had also shown how important it was for the population to have a way of communicating with their own surroundings and obtaining information via cell phones, even in the event of communication failures.

The Federal Office therefore wants to examine with the cantons the possibility of providing WLAN and charging facilities for cell phones at emergency meeting points. Emergency meeting points are a concept that has been implemented in most cantons in order to create a contact point at a predefined location in the event of a crisis.