Automated Digitization Approach for Road Intersections Mapping: Leveraging Azimuth and Curve Detection from Geo-Spatial Data

Effective maintenance and management of road infrastructure are essential for community well-being, economic stability, and cost efficiency. Well-maintained roads reduce accident risks, improve safety, shorten travel times, lower vehicle repair costs, and facilitate the flow of goods, all of which positively contribute to GDP and economic development. Accurate intersection mapping forms the foundation of effective road asset management, yet traditional manual digitization methods remain time-consuming and prone to gaps and overlaps. This study presents an automated computational geometry solution for precise road intersection mapping that eliminates common digitization errors. Unlike conventional approaches that only detect intersection positions, our method systematically reconstructs complete intersection geometries while maintaining topological consistency. The technique combines plane surveying principles (including line-bearing analysis and curve detection) with spatial analytics to automatically identify intersections, characterize their connectivity patterns, and assign unique identifiers based on configurable parameters. When evaluated across multiple urban contexts using diverse data sources (manual digitization and OpenStreetMap), the method demonstrated consistent performance with mean Intersection over Union greater than 0.85 and F-scores more than 0.91. The high correctness and completeness metrics (both more than 0.9) confirm its ability to minimize both false positive and omission errors, even in complex roadway configurations. The approach consistently produced gap-free, overlap-free outputs, showing strength in handling interchange geometries. The solution enables transportation agencies to make data-driven maintenance decisions by providing reliable, standardized intersection inventories. Its adaptability to varying input data quality makes it particularly valuable for large-scale infrastructure monitoring and smart city applications.

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Publication Details

Journal
ISPRS International Journal of Geo-Information
Published
2025-07-05
DOI
https://doi.org/10.3390/ijgi14070264
Citations
2
Primary Topic
Automated Road and Building Extraction
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
2.29
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article

Automated Digitization Approach for Road Intersections Mapping: Leveraging Azimuth and Curve Detection from Geo-Spatial Data

Ahmad M. Senousi, Walid Darwish, Wael Ahmed, Xintao Liu
2 citations
ISPRS International Journal of Geo-Information
Automated Road and Building Extraction
2.29
article

Automated Digitization Approach for Road Intersections Mapping: Leveraging Azimuth and Curve Detection from Geo-Spatial Data

Ahmad M. Senousi, Walid Darwish, Wael Ahmed, Xintao Liu
article en
2 citations

Abstract

Effective maintenance and management of road infrastructure are essential for community well-being, economic stability, and cost efficiency. Well-maintained roads reduce accident risks, improve safety, shorten travel times, lower vehicle repair costs, and facilitate the flow of goods, all of which positively contribute to GDP and economic development. Accurate intersection mapping forms the foundation of effective road asset management, yet traditional manual digitization methods remain time-consuming and prone to gaps and overlaps. This study presents an automated computational geometry solution for precise road intersection mapping that eliminates common digitization errors. Unlike conventional approaches that only detect intersection positions, our method systematically reconstructs complete intersection geometries while maintaining topological consistency. The technique combines plane surveying principles (including line-bearing analysis and curve detection) with spatial analytics to automatically identify intersections, characterize their connectivity patterns, and assign unique identifiers based on configurable parameters. When evaluated across multiple urban contexts using diverse data sources (manual digitization and OpenStreetMap), the method demonstrated consistent performance with mean Intersection over Union greater than 0.85 and F-scores more than 0.91. The high correctness and completeness metrics (both more than 0.9) confirm its ability to minimize both false positive and omission errors, even in complex roadway configurations. The approach consistently produced gap-free, overlap-free outputs, showing strength in handling interchange geometries. The solution enables transportation agencies to make data-driven maintenance decisions by providing reliable, standardized intersection inventories. Its adaptability to varying input data quality makes it particularly valuable for large-scale infrastructure monitoring and smart city applications.

ISPRS International Journal of Geo-InformationVol. 14(7)
Hong Kong Polytechnic University (HK), Cairo University (EG)
Openalex Percentile: Top 12%
Automated Road and Building Extraction
2.29
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