"500 plows in the whole of the UK"

[randomness]

So, I just heard on PRI's "The World" radio news show that the United Kingdom has 500 snowplows for the entire country.

They gave no context for this number. The story certainly gives the impression that this is very few, but how many is a reasonable number? I don't know how many snowplows Massachusetts has, for example.

Leaving aside whether this is true, whether this number only counts plows under the control of the Ministry of Transport, or what... I still don't know how that number compares with places which get more snow.

I'm not blaming the show, as this was more or less an atmosphere piece about how England has come to a sliding, slippery halt because of the weather; but I am really wondering what a baseline number of plows is for a place that gets snow regularly.

Comments

[railwaymadness]

Arlington, Va: 18 inches average annual snowfall, 70 pieces of snow control equipment, 312 miles of roads, $600,000 annual budget.
Minneapolis, Mn: 45 inches average annual snowfall, 100 pieces of snow control equipment, about 1500 miles of roads, $7 million annual budget.

My totally unscientific reading of wikipedia leads me to believe that the January weather in the UK is more similar to that in Atlanta and as far as I can tell, Atlanta occasionally deploys two sand trucks but doesn't admit to owning much of anything else.

Arlington, Va doesn't bother plowing if snowfall is less than four inches and the sun is going to shine. Since the vast majority of the populated UK areas has more days with snow falling than days with snow lying, I'm starting to think 500 plows might be totally reasonable.

[evilmagnus]

And that'll be municipal (local council) owned equipment. I remember from MA that they had tons of private individuals who had plow attachments that could be hired as contractors when the snow hit. That's just not something that's done in the UK - both the idea that the local council would hire Bob with his plow, or that Bob would even own a plow and a truck big enough to use it from.