The Rural Access Index (RAI) was developed by the World Bank in 2006, and is one of the most important global development indicators in the transport sector. The RAI is defined as the “proportion of the rural population who live within 2 km of an all-season road”.
The original 2006 methodology was based on household surveys. In 2016, the World Bank partnered with the Department for International Development (DFID) of the United Kingdom and the Research for Community Access Partnership (ReCAP) to develop a new methodology. The 2016 World Bank methodology took advantage of geospatial techniques and data collected using innovative technologies, and was designed to be sustainable, consistent, simple, and operationally relevant. The RAI was adopted as UN SDG Indicator 9.1.1. in 2016, and the World Bank is custodian of that indicator.
TRL under a separate ReCAP project in 2019 has developed Supplemental Guidelines to the World Bank methodology providing additional detailed guidance for calculation of the RAI.
The Supplementary Guidelines developed by TRL are available at this link.
The goal of this proof of concept application is to demonstrate the potential opportunities and limitations for using open datasets to calculate the RAI score.
For three trial countries in the ReCAP programme (Nepal, Malawi, and Myanmar), country-specific datasets have been used that are regarded as more accurate than the current open datasets. These country-specific datasets have been used to generate RAI scores that should better reflect the RAI scores for those countries. The resulting scores can be visualised on the map.
The tool was last updated in December 2019 and is not being actively maintained. For further information contact info@azavea.com.
The Rural Access Index (RAI) was developed by the World Bank in 2006, and is one of the most important global development indicators in the transport sector. The RAI is defined as the proportion of the rural population who live within 2 km of an all-season road.
This map, developed in partnership with the Research for Community Access Partnership (ReCAP), TRL, and Azavea is a proof of concept tool that displays an estimate RAI for all countries based on three open datasets: OpenStreetMap, WorldPop, GRUMP.
For three trial countries in the ReCAP 2019 project (Nepal, Malawi, and Myanmar), country-specific datasets have been used that are regarded as more accurate than the current open datasets. These country-specific datasets have been used to generate scores that better reflect the RAI for those countries.
Download global RAI dataThe following statistics were generated using three open datasets; OpenStreetMap, WorldPop (2019), GRUMP. The methodology is described in further detail that can be found in the about section.
The following statistics were generated using two approaches: 1) with open datasets (OpenStreetMap; WorldPop, 2019; GRUMP); and 2) with data provided by the country using the RAI methodology developed by the World Bank and Supplemental Guidelines developed by TRL. Both approaches are described in further detail that can be found in the About section.
Indicator |
Approach 1: Open Data |
Approach 2: In-country Data |
---|---|---|
Percent served (RAI) | ||
Total population | ||
Rural pop. | ||
Rural pop. served | ||
Road length (km) |