The African Transport Systems Database - a geospatial database of multi-modal connected networks
The African Transport Systems Database - a geospatial database of multi-modal connected networks
We present the first comprehensive geolocated multi-modal transport database for the whole continent of Africa, the African Transport Systems Database (AfTS-Db), including road, rail, aviation, maritime and inland waterway networks. To do so, we created and standardized asset and network data across all transport modes, including inter-modal connections, attributes of road and rail corridors and estimated annual statistics for airports and ports. The African Transport Systems Database includes 234 airports including their airline routes, 179 maritime ports and their connections with each other, 132 inland ports and docking sites with river and lake connections, 4,412 railway stations connected across 99,373 kilometers of rail lines, and 1,004,512 kilometers of roads mainly comprised of all motorways, trunk roads, primary and secondary routes across Africa and some local roads that connect to other transport modes. The AfTS-Db provides key information for transport planning, resilience assessments, asset management and development of transport models and applications. Furthermore, we expect the data will also be of relevance for environmental, health, social and economic studies.
Transport datasets, Africa, Multi-Modal
Colombo, Silvia
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Pant, Raghav
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Young, Marcus
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Thomas, Fred
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Russell, Tom
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Verschuur, Jasper
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Hall, Jim W.
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4 February 2026
Colombo, Silvia
1c2860ab-2d98-4cf1-b808-bbd2f951eca4
Pant, Raghav
d6eb7e14-6571-4686-9d99-fd1080a427af
Young, Marcus
b7679822-1e61-47d0-b7bf-3e33a12fa8fe
Thomas, Fred
aef559f0-2812-4e35-8d53-741e7d6dacc2
Russell, Tom
16ad60b8-5e0d-486a-9502-14c17306cdd9
Verschuur, Jasper
95d077a6-8b2c-402d-9a3b-061e88ffd2e8
Hall, Jim W.
9ca9f58e-c3a0-40cf-87a7-705413fa4a47
Colombo, Silvia, Pant, Raghav, Young, Marcus, Thomas, Fred, Russell, Tom, Verschuur, Jasper and Hall, Jim W.
(2026)
The African Transport Systems Database - a geospatial database of multi-modal connected networks.
Scientific Data, 13, [166].
(doi:10.31223/X5M16M).
Abstract
We present the first comprehensive geolocated multi-modal transport database for the whole continent of Africa, the African Transport Systems Database (AfTS-Db), including road, rail, aviation, maritime and inland waterway networks. To do so, we created and standardized asset and network data across all transport modes, including inter-modal connections, attributes of road and rail corridors and estimated annual statistics for airports and ports. The African Transport Systems Database includes 234 airports including their airline routes, 179 maritime ports and their connections with each other, 132 inland ports and docking sites with river and lake connections, 4,412 railway stations connected across 99,373 kilometers of rail lines, and 1,004,512 kilometers of roads mainly comprised of all motorways, trunk roads, primary and secondary routes across Africa and some local roads that connect to other transport modes. The AfTS-Db provides key information for transport planning, resilience assessments, asset management and development of transport models and applications. Furthermore, we expect the data will also be of relevance for environmental, health, social and economic studies.
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nature_scientiifc_data_main_colombo_etal_preprint
- Author's Original
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s41597-025-06483-7
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More information
Accepted/In Press date: 15 December 2025
e-pub ahead of print date: 24 December 2025
Published date: 4 February 2026
Keywords:
Transport datasets, Africa, Multi-Modal
Identifiers
Local EPrints ID: 506643
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/506643
ISSN: 2052-4463
PURE UUID: 4dd6dc97-c4fc-4088-bedd-b8418fc38f6c
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Date deposited: 12 Nov 2025 17:59
Last modified: 17 Feb 2026 02:57
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Contributors
Author:
Silvia Colombo
Author:
Raghav Pant
Author:
Fred Thomas
Author:
Tom Russell
Author:
Jasper Verschuur
Author:
Jim W. Hall
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