r/remotesensing • u/doguskenkus • 18h ago

railway status detection tool

hi guys, do you know any trained model or library that allows detect status of railway by using satellite images? I would like to asses whether railway is useable, or abandoned. thanks in advance

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u/Long-Opposite-5889 18h ago

The answer to this question comes down to what would you consider as being usable and of those things are visible at the image resolution. If you're evaluating things like big obstructions in the tracks then you can probably get a pretty good idea from VHR imagery. Now if you're aiming to assess deformation or damages to the rails then the satellite resolution is to coarse for that.

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u/doguskenkus 17h ago

I see. paid satellite image services might help in this sense but this would be above my budget.

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u/Long-Opposite-5889 17h ago

The resolution issue in my previous comment are true for comercial imagery too. With free imagery you can only go to 10m pixel, with comercial, best case scenario you get 30 cm pixels (15 if super resolved). At that resolution you can see the track but can't inspect the rail.

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u/Lewri 18h ago

That seems like an odd remote sensing project, and would usually be done by map data or data from local rail authority. Whats the reason you are trying to do this?

Remote sensing in this sense would more typically be used for things like analysing seasonal flooding near the tracks, monitoring trees that could block the tracks, or detecting unauthorised construction within the railway premises.

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u/doguskenkus 17h ago

I’m trying to analyze the current status of the railway network in a country affected by civil war. It’s not really possible to contact officials since there is no central government, and conducting fieldwork is not feasible either.

Theoretically, I want to assess to what extent the existing railway network is still usable, what percentage needs to be repaired, and, ideally, get a rough estimate of the costs involved in rebuilding it.

I reached openstreetmap data and people's tags regarding current status yet I want to see if I can compare this with satellite images. I’m wondering if there are any tools, datasets, or methodologies that could help me do this remotely using satellite imagery, GIS, or other available data.

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u/rsclay 15h ago

this is an ill-defined problem in my opinion. There are plenty of unusable railways that probably wouldn't look all that different from usable ones on a satellite image. Like others said, the best you'd be able to do from commercial imagery is perhaps identify sections of rail with really major obstructions. and even then, you'll have a hell of a time distinguishing actual obstructions from forests etc. in an automated manner.

Assuming you already have a vector of the network, I'd actually imagine the fastest way to solve this for one country (assuming not too large) would be to literally zoom in on the images and trace the routes manually to see what you can spot.

If this is your project idea for e.g. a remote sensing or GIS course, I'd recommend narrowing or changing your scope.

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u/doguskenkus 15h ago

I see your points. I was quite optimistic for GIS capabilities then. It is a personal cruious/project not related to any course or job etc. I end up with this after I see all this ship detection etc projects.