The State-of-the-Art of Snow Removers and Snow Removing System in Japan

摘要

In winter season, we have heavy snow in Hokkaido, Tohoku and Hokuriku area in Japan. However, about 28 million people (1/4 of Japanese population) live in these areas, which is rare case in the world. In this sense, it is very important to secure the safe road traffic in winter in order to keep the comfortable life in winter. In order to secure the safe road traffic, snow removers play an important role. Recently, advanced snow removers and the useful snow removing system have been developed. In this paper, the state-of-the-art of advanced snow removers and snow removing system are described. As for the snow removers, the details of snowplows, snow removal graders, antifreeze agents spreading vehicles and rotary snowplows are described. In the snowplow, one-man operating system was developed. In the snow removal graders, joy stick type lever and automatic control system of blade operation was developed. In the antifreeze agents spreading vehicles, automatic spreading system was developed. In the rotary snowplows, autonomous locomotion and snow removal system was developed. Furthermore, a total management system has been receiving considerable attention. This system consists of the integrated management system by using GPS and the weather prediction system. In this system, the information on the road surface such as the state and temperature is obtained. By using this information, the freezing on the road surface is predicted and then the spreading plan of the antifreeze agents is made before freezing.