The ground-breaking ceremony took place today to mark the beginning of the construction work. With the regional parcel center in Cadenazzo, Swiss Post is investing in the region and is making a clear commitment to Ticino as a location. In future, parcels will be processed directly in the region, so that transport distances can be reduced and parcels processed more quickly.

Swiss Post is building the first of three new regional parcel centers on the site of the existing distribution base in Cadenazzo, with construction to be completed by the end of 2019. The general contractor and investor is Stisa SA, which also owns the property. Swiss Post will occupy the building as a tenant in future. The project in Cadenazzo involves the construction of an industrial building with docking stations for lorries and delivery vans, as well as a parcel sorting plant which will be situated immediately next to the existing distribution base. The facility will have a sorting capacity of 8,000 parcels per hour. The new parcel center will therefore replace the existing distribution base.

“The new parcel center is a clear commitment to Ticino as a location, and will safeguard jobs and create added value in the region”, explains Susanne Ruoff, CEO of Swiss Post. “The investment, which is in the millions, makes sense not just from a logistics point of view. With online retailing on the rise, it is also important for ecological reasons that parcels for Ticino remain in Ticino instead of being transported to and from Härkingen. This will reduce transport time and part of the parcel logistics will be moved into the region,” affirms the CEO.

Shorter distances – faster processing

Online retail is booming, and parcel volumes are constantly increasing. Last year, Swiss Post processed around 130 million parcels throughout Switzerland. This represents growth of 6.2 percent year-on-year. Swiss Post expects parcel volumes will continue to increase over the coming years. Moreover, customers now want to receive their parcels more and more quickly. This has led to a rapid rise in the number of priority parcels over the last few years. For this reason, Swiss Post is investing around 150 million francs in the construction of three new regional parcel centers in Cadenazzo, Untervaz (canton of Graubünden) und Vétroz (canton of Valais).

The construction of these regional parcel centers is an important step towards being able to handle the rising parcel volumes and to meet customer needs, even after 2020. Swiss Post expects additional parcel centers to follow in other regions over the next few years.

The new regional parcel centers will at the same time reduce the pressure on the three existing parcel centers in Daillens (canton of Vaud), Härkingen (canton of Solothurn) and Frauenfeld (canton of Thurgau). This is because consignments will be sorted and delivered in their respective regions, rather than transiting via the current parcel centers. This will also reduce transport distances.

Source: Swiss Post