Employees of Ark Link (Shibuya-ku, Tokyo) visited Hirosaki city from Tokyo on January 16 and carried out snow removal work for a parking lot "park station" operated in the city.

The company operates a parking lot business in over 1,000 locations nationwide, mainly in Tokyo and Osaka. Entered Hirosaki City in December 2013. By the fall of last year, the number of parking lots was increased to 7, but it is said to be the first full-scale operation in the heavy snowfall area. Kazuyuki Yahagi, president, said, "I had been operating in the heavy snow area in the past, but it was closed during the snow season."

Mr. Yahagi and six employees started shoveling at 7:30. I continued until 18:00 the day before and laughed, "I was sleeping immediately after eating dinner." Almost all of them have no experience shoveling snow, and many of them are from the suburbs of Tokyo, so the work is slow. I bought all the tools and rented heavy equipment. The local staff had started shoveling for a week, but the number of words was small, saying, "It's hard if there is such shoveling every day." Ryota Okada, the director general manager, said, "I have something to wear when it's too cold, but I'm sweating snow. I also have to buy clothes to sweat inside."

Mr. Yahagi says, "Not only does the outsourcing cost be reduced, but it is also meaningful for employees to think about the future needs by knowing how to shovel snow," regarding the reason for visiting Tokyo to remove snow. The company also handles agribusiness, and its employees have obtained a license for heavy machinery. He said that he has accumulated know-how on snow removal in order to make heavy machinery work more efficient in winter, and is considering commercialization in the future.

“If we can provide a service that can be individually adapted to households who have difficulty removing snow,” says Yahagi. During my stay in Hirosaki for two days, I mainly worked on shoveling and returned to Tokyo.