plow and sander. Of course there is no profit for a private company in that.

You gotta move 'em before a plow or sander will help. And that is not easy - the buses only drive one axle, and their differential does not lock - so the tractive effort available is pretty small, compared to the weight of the vehicle.

The big ass wrecker has locking differentials and a locking power divider - all 8 wheels, with most of the weight of that bohemoth on them, will turn at the same time. And the lowest gear in the 15 or 18 speed transmission is good for about 3 mph, so that the wheels will not spin wildly, even if they do slip a little. Plus he has huge winches, and outriggers to anchor the truck in place, or can tie off to a stationary object, then winch the bus out- for hundreds of feet, if necessary. It's all about having the right tools for the job. Not everything is a conspiracy.

Probably won't last much longer what with liabilities and all.

But the scenario we are talking about appears to be municipal buses, why not move them with municipal equipment? Could be they don't have any plows?

Our plows are all 10 wheelers they just lack the winch the tow trucks have, they wouldn't have much problem with a bus when they were loaded with sand.

And they sell town trucks for miles around. Just a f'r instance - A customer had slid off into the ditch while plowing. The driver tried to pull himself out with the wing hoist, BENDING THE FRAME and costing thousands in repairs. Another town twisted off a front axle, (yes, an AWD full size dump) merely trying to back up after stuffing the plow into a snowbank
Seattle uses a smaller chassis for their city plows - looks like an F-450 Ford - and the dump body looks like a 2 cubic yard, with a sander chained in. To start with, they have no pintle hook in the rear, and hooking a chain to the rear crossmember could buckle it, or tear it out of the frame - same for the structure of the dump body. And they are very short of these plows. Ditto front-end loaders, which are busy re-filling the trucks. Even if they could spare a truck, it would likely not even budge the bus - a 3-axle articulated, gotta weigh 30 tons +.
As I said before, this isn't a conspiracy, or even a waste - it's about using the city's resources well, and managing downside risk.

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