Burkina Faso Road Surface and Passability: 9,700 km of Arterial Routes

Delivering AI-derived road surface, width, and passability metrics for approximately 9,700 km of arterial roads in Burkina Faso, produced by HeiGIT. It integrates 2020 and 2024 PlanetScope satellite imagery with OpenStreetMap (OSM) data to classify motorways, trunks, and primary/secondary roads. The analysis fills data gaps for 1,200 km of roads that previously lacked surface tags in OSM.

Use Cases

• Logistics planning using the Humanitarian Passability Index (HPI) to identify high-risk or low-capacity routes
• Infrastructure development monitoring by analyzing Road Surface Change from 2020 to 2024
• Heavy vehicle routing optimization based on Road Width Class to ensure unimpeded flow for two-lane trucks

Strengths

• 89.2% accuracy for surface model predictions compared to 64.7% for standard OSM tags
• Provides surface information for 794% more road length than available in baseline OSM tags
• Includes temporal change detection between 2020 and 2024 imagery

Limitations

• Restricted to arterial road classes, omitting the majority of the rural and local road network
• AI-derived predictions are subject to model error and should be validated for critical operations
• Geographic scope is limited to Burkina Faso

Provenance

Source

Heidelberg Institute for Geoinformation Technology (HeiGIT)

Collection Method

Deep learning analysis of PlanetScope satellite imagery integrated with OpenStreetMap vector data

Time Range

2020 - 2024

Freshness

Reflects conditions as of 2024 imagery; last updated in March 2026.

Geography

Burkina Faso