Paris, France - The municipal authority in Paris has purchased a total of nine Mercedes-Benz Unimog U 400s equipped with tunnel washing units made by the leading manufacturer of mowing and tunnel cleaning equipment, Mulag, which is based in Oppenau/Black Forest, Germany. The Unimogs can also attach grit spreaders, snowploughs and snow clearance units.

The enormous range of tasks carried out by the cleaning services in Paris and their 8000 employees can be illustrated by three figures: each day they dispose of 3,000 tonnes of waste in the city area, and clean 1,400 km of roads and 2,800 km of pavement.

The Mercedes-Benz Unimog U 400 are equipped with dual-circuit hydraulics and power take-offs for the implements, and are powered by a 177 hp four-cylinder BlueTec engine (Euro 4) with SCR diesel technology which drastically reduces nitrogen oxide and particulate emissions while optimising fuel consumption. The boom of the FME 600-T tunnel washing unit by Mulag has a range of 5.5 m to the right or left. It is designed to clean walls, ceilings and continuous lighting strips in tunnels and subways. Its automatic, electronic scanning system with ultra¬sonic sensors precisely adapts the washing brush to the structure of the surface to be cleaned. The boom head can be fitted with either a brush or a spray bar. In order to avoid time-consuming refitting, Propreté de Paris plans to operate three vehicles with brushes and six with spray bars, together with the appropriate tank bodies.

The wide Boulevard Périphérique, which was built between 1954 and 1973 to encircle Paris, has well over 30 tunnels with 720,000 square metres of tunnel surfaces in each direction. To clean it, the traffic must be diverted and the relevant section of the Boulevard Périphérique closed down completely. For this reason the 100 or so workmen responsible for this task only work at night. “Tunnel-washing days” are exclusively between April 15 and November 15.