At the end of 2007, Monoprix, leader on the city centre store market, and Fret SNCF will be running a joint experiment for the delivery of merchandise by rail to Parisian shops which are part of the Monoprix group. The products will be leaving warehouses located in the suburbs with the last kilometres covered by a fleet of 20 trucks fuelled by Natural Gas for Vehicles (NGV).

Renault Trucks and its partner PVI will be taking part in this ambitious sustainable development project by providing most of the vehicles to the logistics operators working for Monoprix: 4 Midlum NGVs (GVW 16T) and 10 Premium Distribution NGVs (GVW 28T) for Bourgey Montreuil-Geodis; 4 other Premium Distribution NGVs for GT location.

These vehicles will be bodied for controlled-temperature transport and fitted with a lift gate. They will have automatic Allison gearboxes with continuous drive power take off to run the refrigeration units. This system, coupled the NGV engine, will contribute to delivering very low noise levels. The gas tanks will be specially fitted in the wheelbase so as to facilitate bodying work.

The project run by Monoprix concerns the supply of 60 shops in inner Paris and should represent 210,000 pallets, i.e. 120,000 tons of merchandise. The rail/NGV vehicle combination will reduce CO2 emissions by 280 tons and nitrogen oxide emissions (NOx) by 19 tons per year. The Monoprix NGV fleets will be the first private French NGV distribution fleet.

The Renault Trucks range of NGV vehicles is part of a complete range of alternatives to diesel developed with PVI which also includes electrical and bimodal thermal / electrically-driven vehicles. This will be supplemented in the medium term by a range of hybrid technology vehicles presaged by the urban vehicle concept truck HYBRYS presented at the Amsterdam show.