Leading European transport and logistics company, Norbert Dentressangle, is to use the River Seine to transport goods to stores in Paris on behalf of leading convenience retailer, Franprix, part of the Casino Group.
In line with the company’s pioneering approach to reducing the impact of its activities on the environment, Norbert Dentressangle will use the river to make deliveries to 80 Franprix stores in the capital, saving almost half a million road miles each year.
From September 2012, Norbert Dentressangle will manage the transportation of 26 containers, each containing 450 pallets, by barge every day – from the river port in Bonneuil-sur-Marne (94) to the heart of Paris. The barges will cover 20km of the Seine, passing through two locks in Créteil and St-Maurice, before reaching the centre of Paris. The port in Bourdonnais (7th arrondissement) will be specially adapted to receive the barges, which will be unloaded by crane and the goods transferred to trucks for final delivery to stores, also undertaken by Norbert Dentressangle.
This multimodal transport will reduce the distance covered by trucks every year by thousands of kilometres. In real terms, every container transported by river represents a saving of 10,000 km of road transport per year. In 2013, 48 containers will be delivered per day, equivalent to a saving of 450,000 km per year.
Hervé Montjotin, Managing Director of Norbert Dentressangle’s Transport Division said: “At Norbert Dentressangle, we were particularly keen to meet the Franprix challenge, which involved devising a transport system using the river to make deliveries to inner Paris. This initiative is fully in line with the philosophy of our company, which is to operate in a sustainable manner and reduce the impact of our activities on the environment, both through the use of the latest technology to improve the productivity and environmental performance of our vehicles and the provision of innovative solutions, such as the one we are providing for Franprix.
“This complex project also reinforce our position as a multimodal transport company, which can seamlessly integrate transport solutions with various partners. We are extremely proud of the trust placed in us by Franprix for this ambitious project, which is about to be put into practice.”
The project would not have been possible without the active cooperation of Port Autonome de Paris, Voies Navigables de France, SCAT, TDS and Paris Terminal. Every day, these specialist port handling companies will complete loading, in less than four hours, at the river port at Bonneuil-sur-Marne and transport goods via the Seine, before unloading the barges in Paris.