Potential Impacts of Multipurpose Snow Removal Instrument on Snow Removal Operations

A multi-purpose snow removal instrument is being developed to help effectively remove snow from downtown areas. The instrument is detachable on a regular cargo truck and consists of a blower and a snow melter. The blower transports snow from the road surface to the melting tank, and the water melted in the tank is drained away to sewers on the roadsides. The main purpose of the instrument is to melt away snow quickly from the road surface. The rapid snow removal is expected to increase road capacity considerably. This study is to evaluate its effectiveness by incorporating microscopic traffic simulation modeling and travel demand elasticity with respect to snowfall. The analysis result shows that the multi-purpose snow removal instrument helps increase traffic volume by 6% and travel speed by 13% when compared to those of ordinary snow plows.