Metro Snow & Ice Management

TL;DR - Appleseed did a fine job, after Metro bought them out, the service level has noticeably deteriorated.

I don`t mind an occasional late run or even a miss here and there, but last season was exceptionally poor in my neighbourhood (Merivale/Greenbank Office). I tried using the website 'submit an issue' feature at least 6 times and never received even a courtesy reply. I suppose the problem of missing a run self-resolves when snow just accumulates on your driveway and they clear it during a later snow event a few days later. The company also vaunts their GPS email system [which I don't actually need or expect, and would gladly swap for prompt service without notification] but I only ever received one email last year (after the second snowstorm, since they missed the first one). Not sure if the tech feature was malfunctioning or if they did not want to actually provide written confirmation of how many late runs they did (and by late I mean days late, not hours late, which is totally to be expected sometimes). It seemed last season you either got the lane cleared and were stuck with the grader dump to clear yourself, or they waited to clear grader dump and missed your lane in the meantime. Admittedly, they mentioned difficulties in coordinating with the city plows, but somehow their competitor(s) on the street made it work reasonably well.
Would gladly trade all the email communication (which admittedly, I did appreciate) for actual snow removal...

Think I will try to pay more (or less) for a smaller and/or more reliable outfit to clear my driveway next season. No business is perfect, but last season with Metro gave me enough of a reason to take a look elsewhere.