• International Journal of Highway Engineering
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.83-90
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• 2017

PURPOSES : In this study, systematic road snow-removal capabilities were estimated based on previous historical data for road-snowremoval works. The final results can be used to aid decision-making strategies for cost-effective snow-removal works by regional offices. METHODS : First, road snow-removal historical data from the road snow-removal management system (RSMS), operated by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, were employed to determine specific characteristics of the snow-removal capabilities by region. The actual owned amount and actual used amount of infrastructure were analyzed for the past three years. Second, the regional offices were classified using K-means clustering into groups "close" to one another. Actual used snow-removal infrastructure was determined from the number of snow-removal working days. Finally, the correlation between the de-icing materials used and infrastructure was analyzed. Significant differences were found among the amounts of used infrastructure depending on snowfall intensity for each regional office during the past three years. RESULTS:The results showed that the amount of snow-removal infrastructure used for low heavy-snowfall intensity did not appear to depend on the amount of heavy snowfall, and therefore, high variation is observed in each area. CONCLUSIONS:This implies that the final analysis results will be useful when making decisions on snow-removal works.

• International Journal of Highway Engineering
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.9-18
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• 2017

PURPOSES : This study evaluates the reasonableness of the recommended amount of deicing chemicals based on historical data for snow removal. The result can be used to aid decision-making for the reservation of cost-effective de-icing chemicals. METHODS : First, the recommended amount of de-icing chemical to use and historical usage data were evaluated to identify specific usage characteristics for each region. Road maintenance length and snow-removal working days were analyzed over the past five winter seasons. Next, differences in the recommended amount of chemical to use and actual use were compared using the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test. Last, the two types of data were analyzed using a chi-square test to verify if the two distributions of variation pattern are statistically significant. We found that there are significant differences between the data from each region during the past five winter seasons. RESULTS : The results showed that the equation for calculating the amount of de-icing chemical to use appears to be revised. CONCLUSIONS : The results imply that the equation for calculating the amount of de-icing chemical to apply as a national standard is very important when the public agency makes decisions related to snow-removal.