Stuart, part of DPDgroup, has announced it is trialing a mobile depot with the City of Paris and the 15th district’s town hall on a dedicated parking space to limit carbon emissions, noise pollution and traffic congestion associated with urban delivery.
For six months from April, a parking space will host a large capacity vehicle (from 12m3 to 20m3 ) that will instantly dispatch parcels on electrically assisted bicycles with trailers to carry out efficient and eco-responsible delivery in the neighborhood. This new logistics model brings the goods closer to the consumer and promotes active last-mile delivery. In the long term, this trial could be continued in the district and extended beyond to strengthen the same-day or by-appointment delivery service, which is now essential to retailers and e-traders.
In Paris, France, last-mile delivery is responsible for 15-20% of urban traffic and 25% of carbon emissions. The growth in delivery volumes during the Covid-19 pandemic is bringing about major structural changes that require logistics to be placed at the heart of cities, according to Stuart.
“The Covid-19 crisis has allowed us to test new approaches and refine our urban logistics model by working extremely responsively, hand in hand with our client partners and public authorities,” said Damien Bon, CEO of Stuart. “Thanks to our experience, we are now ready to take Stuart to the next level in order to cater for greater parcel volumes and absorb more volatile peaks in activity via larger urban warehouses and a rollout of mobile depots in cities.”
Philippe Goujon, Mayor of the 15th district of Paris, commented, “Stuart’s initiative seems particularly timely to us at a time when the environmental dimension is more important than ever and when the use of active mobility, particularly suited to last-mile delivery in a city as dense as Paris, combines advantages – decongestion of streets, absence of CO2 emissions, silence, etc – that everyone is now calling for.”
Since 2020, Stuart has been developing its network of urban warehouses to absorb and pool incoming logistics flows in cities in order to distribute delivery rounds directly to the closest areas and eventually to supply mobile depots to cover more distant delivery areas.
In line with the ‘zero net artificialization’ objective set by the French government as part of the biodiversity plan, these urban depots are based on the revaluation of existing spaces in the heart of cities rather than building everything from scratch. The opening of a Stuart urban warehouse in Paris-Bercy enables same-day delivery or delivery by appointment of orders that will now transit through this former SNCF freight station measuring more than 1,200m2.
“This model drastically reduces the number of bulky delivery vehicles circulating in Paris, by bringing goods as close as possible to their destination, and by replacing high-emission vehicles with bicycles with electric trailers,” explained Bon. “The ambition in the long term is to create a network of urban warehouses and mobile depots that is most suitable for both urban users and parcel delivery operators, in order to best meet consumer needs and adapt to peaks in activity.”