The reduction of public works expenditures, particularly snow removal expenditures, is a pressing need for governments in Japan, and there are calls for a systematic approach to cost reduction. Reducing snow removal expenditures at the level of the national government requires the following: 1)analysis of the cost structure, 2) development of a method for comparing costs among regions, and 3) development of cost reduction standards. This paper studied methods for objectively determining the cost effectiveness of snow removal, toward inter-regional comparison that has been regarded asdifficult because snow removal costs depend on various factors including weather conditions and the demand for snow control. To this end, we developed a snow removal cost estimation model that is based on the relationshipbetween snow removal costs and cumulative snowfall, the data for which are readily available. Our model uses a linear regression line of "unit cost of snow removal" (UCSR) to analyze those relationships. The line expresses the linear relationship between cumulative snowfall, plotted on the x axis, and unit cost of snow removal, plotted on the y axis. "Unit cost ofsnow removal" is defined as the annual snow removal cost divided by the length of road with snow removal and divided again by the cumulative snowfall. The paper will propose a method of using the model for inter-regional comparisons of snow removal cost effectiveness, and we introduce how the model is being used to rationally and properly allocate national snow removal budgets to each snowy region of Japan.
Abstract