In Japan, the aging of society is progressing rapidly, and in cold snowy regions in particular, society is aging at a rate higher than the nationalaverage. The removal of snow from sidewalks and from community roads formerly performed by households and regional societies is now extremely difficult because of the aging, depopulation, and the resulting weakened community consciousness of regional societies. Dependency on administrative bodies for snow removal is gradually rising. But because management standards for winter roads have not yet been established for both vehicle lanes and sidewalks, there is concern that economically inefficient road management will be performed in the future, as snow removal at locations with low investment effectiveness is performed at the same level as that at locations with high investment effectiveness. In order to remove snow efficiently and effectively to achieve the final goal of rational winter road managementbased on objective standards that conform to regional characteristics, the setting of winter road management standards for both vehicle lanes and sidewalks was studied. For the covering abstract see ITRD E143097.
Samenvatting