Not all roads are created equal: network science shows some highways matter more for Brazil’s connectivity

Road infrastructure is essential for the moving goods and people. Given its logistical importance around the world, a deeper understanding of its network structure can improve connectivity, efficiency, and safety. When viewed through the lens of network science, this system reveals patterns and structural properties that can justify improvements and changes. It also strengthens the ability to plan for control, disaster recovery, and future investments. Brazil is highly dependent on road mobility, with approximately 75,000 kilometers of federal roads that serve as the main national and regional corridors. This paper provides an in-depth analysis of these road networks by modeling the federal system as weighted networks using road segments at both national and regional levels. First, we examine connectivity and topology using the distance between nodes as the primary weight. Next, we incorporate additional metrics: number of incidents, vehicle flow, incidents per kilometer, and flow per road lane. We then focus on community detection to identify clusters of road segments that form cohesive groups within both the national and regional networks. Additionally, we simulate resilience and vulnerability by removing selected nodes and edges to assess the impact of natural disasters on the network. Our findings aim to improve understanding of Brazil’s segmented federal road structure, enabling comparison with other models and providing actionable insights for assessing impacts and improving infrastructure.