Business trips

For all air travel, as well as travel outside the European Union by any other mode, the employee must complete the pre-application form for travel and obtain authorization from his/her line manager.

For all destinations that can be reached by train in one day (approximately 10 hours) from the station closest to the contractual workplace (Lausanne or Sion), plane tickets will not be reimbursed and the train must be chosen.

This rule applies in particular to all destinations on this list.

To make organising train journeys easier, there are a number of useful online resources, a non-exhaustive list below.

Many train journeys abroad can be planned via the CFF website. However, sometimes this site is not powerful enough and the best available connection is not offered. To this end, the websites of the Deutsche Bahn and that of the Czech Railways can be consulted for international connections and ticket reservations.

The Swiss airline and SBB are offering combined rail and air tickets. Travellers can now travel from certain stations in Switzerland, including Lausanne, and in neighbouring countries to the airport. The train ticket is valid from one day before departure and one day after the flight on all routes on the corresponding line.

Online planning tools

Omio, a booking platform, unites more than 1,39,000 travel providers: train, bus, ferry, but also plane. It allows you to compare prices and travel times according to the mode of travel chosen. However, some destinations that are easily accessible by train do not appear in the options.

Rail.cc is an aid for planning individual train journeys that details the stages of the journey, particularly with the help of a map, but also links to ticket purchasing sites.

Recently updated, seat61 is an English site packed with information on planning a trip without flying in Europe, and on other continents. Although the routes start in the UK, the information can still help you plan your trip.

Seat61 is a website full of information on planning a trip without flying in Europe and other continents.

Trainline sells train and bus tickets from 270 public transport companies in over 40 countries. Journeys with stopovers cannot be booked all at once, but each tap must be ordered separately.

Travel by students and guests financed by UNIL is exempt from prior application via the online form, but remains subject to Directive 0.8. The inviting entity/contractor is competent to grant a temporary exemption under the conditions of Directive 0.8 (art. 10). Please refer to the specific instructions of each faculty where applicable.

The same applies to staff without a UNIL contract (for example, certain doctoral students from the SNSF).  
When requesting reimbursement from the Financial Service, indicate in the supporting documents that the person is exempt from making a prior request for travel via the online form.

For air travel, a CO2 contribution proportional to the missions generated will be levied in order to fund an internal redistribution mechanism in favour of transition projects.

This mechanism still needs to be fine-tuned with the faculties and will not come into effect until 2024.

The Management and the Registrars may grant exceptional derogations from the rules laid down in the directive for the following reasons:

The directive does not apply to the transport of persons or goods.

• reasons relating to à reconciling work and family responsibilities,
• related reasons,
or health.
• other cases of force majeure.

Any derogation must be justified and documented at the time of the request for reimbursement.

Requests for derogations must be made using the advance travel request form.