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Abstract The manuscript describes the development of a snow plowing model for calculating the cycle time required for various maintenance yards by considering the road network, weather and traffic conditions. The road network includes pavement width, shoulder width, ramp width, locations of ramps, locations of intersections and different snow plowing patterns depending on available number of plows. Imaginary nodes are introduced in this model to account for changes in pavement and shoulder widths. Traffic speeds for each road segments during different travel time were extracted from Congestion Management System (CMS) and used as the model input to account for speed reductions due to roadway congestion. By comparing the traffic data on the snow days and that for non-snow days from Weigh-in-Motion (WIM) sites, four snow-conditions reduction factors for AM peak, afternoon, PM peak and nighttime periods are developed to account for the decrease of speed due to the snow. Finally, a case study was performed and the snow plowing model is applied to calculate the plowing cycle for different situations with limited number of plows. This research lays basis for further research on snow plowing operation and resource management. Introduction In the present climate of shrinking monetary and manpower resources, it is imperative for all public organizations to make the most efficient use of their resources. In this context, it is a real problem for most of Department of Transportation (DOTs) to allocate snow plows and salt spreaders for a given snow event. Hence a snow model for resource allocation is a critical tool used to determine how many trucks are needed to clear the roads and to estimate how long it takes to complete the snow removal operation. Additionally, it can also be used to determine how many contractor trucks are needed for the Snow Contracts, if DOTs are short of required number of trucks. During snow removal, vehicles used to clean the snow are driven to the yard for cleaning the entire road network. Depending on the importance of road and snowfall rate, roads have to be cleared at different time intervals, as a result, the primary snow and ice control operations are related to cycle time. Cycle time is primarily a function of the number of personnel and the amount of equipment available to treat the assigned roadway system or route. Other factors, including traffic volume/speed, traffic control devices, roadway geometry/complexity, and the location of material stockpiles also contribute to achievable cycle time. The cycle time for a facility is largely dependent on the importance or functional classification of the road, which may be strongly related to the roadway’s average daily traffic volume (ADT). Hence the primary objective of this research is to develop a model which can calculate the cycle time required for various maintenance yard by considering the road network, road pavement geometry including pavement width, shoulder width, ramp TRB 2012 Annual Meeting Paper revised from original submittal.
