trailer world issue Two 2010

Dossier 18 Issue Two 2010 Deret‘s quiet electric vans made in the UK makes deliveries to boutiques in the city centre of Paris. portion packs for their Nespresso coffee ma- chine on the internet. Trucks bring the finished packages twice a day from the Nestlé warehouse way out of town to Colizen’s 500 m² unit in a commer- cial estate on the Northern outskirts of the city. A special computer programme optimis- es the routes on the basis of the delivery ad- dresses. The driver then loads the route onto the GPS vehicle computer to show him the overall route and stopping points. The vehicle consists of a small electric delivery van made by the French company Goupil. It is only one metre wide and 3.30 metres long, but can car- ry 500 kilo of load. The manoeuvrable vehicle is much easier to park than a truck, and with its 80 km range per battery charge it is incom- parably cheap to operate. Pooling customers and routes On the other hand, FM Logistics, the transport and logistics group does not want to man- age without large trucks in serving industrial customers and retail chains. FM Logistics has developed a pooling system for deliveries to supermarkets and shops in and around Paris. The company’s premises in the logistics site Longeuil-Saint-Marie 40 km to the North of Paris are used to store the goods for nearly 20 different customers in separate warehouse buildings. But the delivery routes are then or- ganised by grouping together orders for the same products from different brands – for ex- ample cosmetics or preserves, to make better use of the trucks’ capacities. Taking the train into town On the other hand, the retail chain Monoprix has two large warehouse sites for non-perishable goods and beverages in Combs-la-Ville which is a good 30 km to the South East of Paris. In the past, lines of trucks took goods directly to the approx. 60 shops and supermarkets run by Monoprix in Paris. But for two years now, the trip into the city has gone by rail. In a warehouse at Paris-Bercy goods station hired from SNCF, the pallets are unloaded at night from the wagons on the one side and then on the other side loaded onto the trucks waiting in line according to the vari- ous delivery routes. The Geodis transport group is responsible for the delivery runs for Monoprix, operating with natural-gas pow- ered trucks in compliance with the Euro 5 exhaust standard. This solution means that there are 10,000 fewer trucks on the roads of Paris each year. From forwarder to electric vehicle dealer While Monoprix and Geodis have found rail- way premises for their delivery hub, the trans- port and logistics group Deret uses a ware- house in the port of Gennevillier, a suburb to Photos:Cartographer–Fotolia.com,Klingensieck

trailer world issue Two 2010

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