The town hall of Paris launched an experiment on Friday June 9. She inaugurated two micro-warehouses, installed at the edge of a counter alley, on boulevard Beaumarchais and on rue Réaumur. It is part of the rparking lot reformvoted by the Paris Council in the summer of 2021, which provided, among other things, fewer parking spaces for thermal vehicles and more places for deliveries.
READ: Paris: paid parking from 2022 for thermal two-wheelers (and prices are increasing for all)
These two structures are installed in old parking lots for motorcycles. These are wooden cages closed by a padlock, which must serve as logistical relays between the trucks and the cargo bikes. Yacine Kara, the manager of the Ecolotrans delivery company, rents the one in Bastille at 300 euros per month. It delivers all kinds of products to individuals or businesses in the center of Paris. “We have warehouses outside Paris, where we prepare containers with customer goods. The trucks will then drop them off in these small units”he explains.
The goal: to limit van stops in intramural Paris
Its fleet of delivery bikes then comes to collect the small containers to deliver them to customers over the last few miles. The truck driver therefore stops just once, rather than 10 times at each address. An advantage for his drivers, exasperated by traffic jams, according to Yacine Kara, who also hopes to make his rent profitable with the time saved at the time of delivery. He makes sure that the products are deposited in the structure in the morning and delivered during the day, to avoid thefts at night.
The other mini warehouse is rented by the bicycle delivery cooperative Olvo. She uses it the other way around. The deliverers collect plastic bottles from users, then place them in the cage. A truck from the Lemon Tri company then picks them up to recycle the plastic.
E-commerce continues to grow
“If there are no such solutions, the legislator risks saying stop, because there is an explosion of flows with e-commerce. Which generates an explosion in the number of polluting vehicles in the city, it adds too many constraints. notes Yacine Kara.
The experimentation of this mini-warehouse will last one year. If it is conclusive, in terms of the resistance of the structure and the satisfaction of companies in particular, the town hall intends to multiply these small warehouses in the capital.