The changing surface of the world's roads
Fuente:
arXiv
Saved in:
| Main Authors: | , , , , , , , , |
|---|---|
| Format: | Preprint |
| Published: |
2025
|
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | |
| Tags: |
Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
|
| _version_ | 1866909942877782016 |
|---|---|
| author | Randhawa, Sukanya Randhawa, Guntaj Langer, Clemens Andorful, Francis Herfort, Benjamin Kwakye, Daniel Olchik, Omer Lautenbach, Sven Zipf, Alexander |
| author_facet | Randhawa, Sukanya Randhawa, Guntaj Langer, Clemens Andorful, Francis Herfort, Benjamin Kwakye, Daniel Olchik, Omer Lautenbach, Sven Zipf, Alexander |
| contents | Resilient road infrastructure is a cornerstone of the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Yet a primary indicator of network functionality and resilience is critically lacking: a comprehensive global baseline of road surface information. Here, we overcome this gap by applying a deep learning framework to a global mosaic of Planetscope satellite imagery from 2020 and 2024. The result is the first global multi-temporal dataset of road pavedness and width for 9.2 million km of critical arterial roads, achieving 95.5% coverage where nearly half the network was previously unclassified. This dataset reveals a powerful multi-scale geography of human development. At the planetary scale, we show that the rate of change in pavedness is a robust proxy for a country's development trajectory (correlation with HDI = 0.65). At the national scale, we quantify how unpaved roads constitute a fragile backbone for economic connectivity. We further synthesize our data into a global Humanitarian Passability Matrix with direct implications for humanitarian logistics. At the local scale, case studies demonstrate the framework's versatility: in Ghana, road quality disparities expose the spatial outcomes of governance; in Pakistan, the data identifies infrastructure vulnerabilities to inform climate resilience planning. Together, this work delivers both a foundational dataset and a multi-scale analytical framework for monitoring global infrastructure, from the dynamics of national development to the realities of local governance, climate adaptation, and equity. Unlike traditional proxies such as nighttime lights, which reflect economic activity, road surface data directly measures the physical infrastructure that underpins prosperity and resilience - at higher spatial resolution. |
| format | Preprint |
| id |
arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2512_04092 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2025 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | The changing surface of the world's roads Randhawa, Sukanya Randhawa, Guntaj Langer, Clemens Andorful, Francis Herfort, Benjamin Kwakye, Daniel Olchik, Omer Lautenbach, Sven Zipf, Alexander Physics and Society Artificial Intelligence Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition Computers and Society Resilient road infrastructure is a cornerstone of the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Yet a primary indicator of network functionality and resilience is critically lacking: a comprehensive global baseline of road surface information. Here, we overcome this gap by applying a deep learning framework to a global mosaic of Planetscope satellite imagery from 2020 and 2024. The result is the first global multi-temporal dataset of road pavedness and width for 9.2 million km of critical arterial roads, achieving 95.5% coverage where nearly half the network was previously unclassified. This dataset reveals a powerful multi-scale geography of human development. At the planetary scale, we show that the rate of change in pavedness is a robust proxy for a country's development trajectory (correlation with HDI = 0.65). At the national scale, we quantify how unpaved roads constitute a fragile backbone for economic connectivity. We further synthesize our data into a global Humanitarian Passability Matrix with direct implications for humanitarian logistics. At the local scale, case studies demonstrate the framework's versatility: in Ghana, road quality disparities expose the spatial outcomes of governance; in Pakistan, the data identifies infrastructure vulnerabilities to inform climate resilience planning. Together, this work delivers both a foundational dataset and a multi-scale analytical framework for monitoring global infrastructure, from the dynamics of national development to the realities of local governance, climate adaptation, and equity. Unlike traditional proxies such as nighttime lights, which reflect economic activity, road surface data directly measures the physical infrastructure that underpins prosperity and resilience - at higher spatial resolution. |
| title | The changing surface of the world's roads |
| topic | Physics and Society Artificial Intelligence Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition Computers and Society |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.04092 |