Abstract
The functionality of urban transportation is remarkably reduced in Sapporo in winter because of heavy snowfall. Road heating systems are an efficient way of mitigating this problem, but their implementation has been limited in urban areas by high development and operating costs. Co-generation system makes it possible to save on fuel costs, which account for the largest portion of operating costs. This study seeks to establish a method of locating a road heating network efficiently, and of evaluating such a network.
The study is characterized by use of GIS (Geographic Information System) as a tool for location planning of the road heating network. Traffic volume, bus service level and number of pedestrians were used as factors for the evaluation. Their reciprocals were input to a GIS as link impedance. We suggested a location plan for road heating network by this method, and we concluded that evaluation is possible without factors such as distance, cost and time, which had been used. We evaluated only direct benefit (snow removal costs). More detailed evaluation has been left for the future.
