Photo: Dr. Jean-Paul Rodrigue, 2014.
Monoprix, an important French retailer, has been using a combination of train and CNG trucks to deliver non-food products to about 90 of its Parisian supermarkets between 2007 and 2016. This took place at the Bercy terminal, adjacent to Gare de Lyon, a major passenger rail terminal near downtown Paris. The terminal handled about 15 to 20 rail wagons per day that were brought in from the Combs-la-Ville terminal, located 30 km further away in the south-east of the region. Then, the pallets were sorted by store (or groups of stores if multiple deliveries were involved) and loaded into CNG trucks for final delivery. The drawback of this initiative is that although it represented a successful marketing initiative and strong environmental benefits, it came with higher distribution costs.