X.Hua: E.VO.L.U.E stands for Engagement Volontaire pour une Logistique Urbaine Plus Effice. It's an initiative which I'm going to describe in a little more detail, and which began about two years ago.

This initially private initiative is credited to 3 associations. The first, and it's not a very good one, but the first one I represent is the Institut du Commerce. The other 2 associations you know well are Club Déméter, which runs the logistics fresco just behind. And France Supply Chain, which is really the Vertical Supply Chain association for all sectors. As you can see, these 3 associations are totally complementary.

Then, in the middle, there's the test area, the Grand Paris-Seine-Ouest and its various communes. This represents 330,000 inhabitants. The area is both very urban, with Boulogne and Boulogne-Billancourt for example, and a little more rural. Marne-la-Coquette, to the very west of this territory. And you have a river in the middle, the Seine. So it's a very representative area, with constraints that are quite interesting for urban logistics.

Finally, below are the sponsors and technical partners of this project:

X.Hua: Let's come back for a minute to an extremely important point for the future, which we spent a lot of time on: providing a totally secure legal framework so that contributors, including DB Schenker and Geodis, but also others, can share their data in complete confidentiality.

The project as such, for those who followed us 2 years ago or a little more, we presented this project with several phases. The first was data collection. Because it was extremely important to know what was happening on a territory with contributors, with shippers, with economic players delivering goods on this territory.

JB. Derdoy: PTV logistics was responsible for processing the data submitted by our partners. We collected a total of over 25,000 deliveries and pick-ups in the GPSO area and analyzed them. Thanks to our software solutions, we were able to reconstitute the routes and carry out various analyses, two of which are presented here.

We also analyzed delivery vehicle journey times. Traffic jams have relatively little impact on routes within the region. On the other hand, when it comes to getting from the depot to the area's accessibility, there's a real challenge. To be able to carry out deliveries and services from 9 a.m. onwards, you have to leave early and be on the Île-de-France main road network at the height of the peak period.

In other words, to be able to cover the territory, but also to be on routes that are relatively accessible to road traffic. From these positions, we would be able to serve 95% of deliveries and pick-ups in the area, while respecting the issue of urban boundaries and the Seine, which imposes constraints in terms of traffic, with a theoretical catchment area of 2 km.

C. Seiller: So, in terms of lessons learned, it was very clear to us that it enabled us to objectify a feeling and quantify it. To do it properly, we'd have to do four delivery areas, because we realize that delivery points are extremely diffuse. Here, at least, I've got the quantity, and I know I won't be able to do it, i.e. making 4 times as many delivery areas in an already constrained urban environment is very complicated. Every day, we're confronted with the need to use parking space for other purposes, in particular the installation of charging stations for electric vehicles.

Make temporary experimental tactical logistical tools and say, " We'll demonstrate their usefulness and then we'll be in a position to make them permanent, to reserve land in a more proactive way.

X. Hua: there are two avenues that have been identified, the first with the gpso region and the players present here on the notion of shared urban hubs, because we realized that there were no initiatives, no concrete realizations of shared urban hubs between several economic players and operated by several service providers.

The other approach, which was in fact the one pursued at the outset of this project, is to model an approach, a kind of kit in fact, of tools for going to local authorities and saying "if you want to manage urban logistics in your area as efficiently as possible, we can provide you with a whole methodology".