Case-Based Snow Clearance Directive Support System for Novice Directors

Abstract

Experts have issued directives for snow clearance in snowy regions.These directives are implemented in accordance with the experience of the director in charge, and snowplow drivers are reliant on directors to carry out their tasks efficiently. However, many experienced directors will be retiring when they reach retirement age in the next few years and their successors will be faced with difficult circumstances because of a lack of training and experience. In order to provide support to such neophyte directors, we propose a case-based directive support system, which reuses past directive cases. Each such case stores data on weather, snow, number of snowplows available, the time taken to complete a snow clearance task and an evaluation of the tasks carried out by the director. When a neophyte director specifies current task conditions, the system searches and presents cases similar to the current conditions. When the director selects the most similar case, the system estimates the time required to complete the snow clearance task, based on the snow and road conditions. The director can also manage the progress of snow clearance tasks with the system.