Benford’s Law and Transport Infrastructure: The Analysis of the Main Road Network’s Higher-Level Segments in the EU
Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: Benford’s Law, also known as the First-Digit Law, describes the non-uniform distribution of leading digits in many naturally occurring datasets. This phenomenon can be observed in data such as financial transactions, tax records, or demographic indicators, but the application of Benford’s Law to data from the field of transport infrastructure remains largely underexplored. As interest in using statistical distributions to identify spatial and regional patterns grows, this paper explores the applicability of Benford’s Law to anthropogenic geographic data, particularly whether the lengths of higher-level segments of the main road network across European Union member states follow Benford’s Law. To evaluate the conformity of the data from all European Union countries with Benford’s distribution, Pearson’s χ2 test of association, the p-value, and the Kolmogorov–Smirnov test were used. The results consistently show low χ2 values and high p-values, indicating a strong agreement between observed and expected distributions. The relationship between the distribution of higher-level segment lengths and the leading digits of these lengths was studied as well. The findings suggest that the length distribution of the main road networks’ higher-level segments closely follows Benford’s Law, emphasizing its potential as a simple yet effective tool for assessing the reliability and consistency of geographic and infrastructure datasets within the European context.
DOI: 10.3390/ijgi14110450
Institutions: University of Prešov, Technical University of Košice
Language: English
Subfield: Statistics and Probability
Field: Mathematics
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $2,292
Awards: G170866922, G2400429332, Pokročilé metódy a nástroje pre modelovanie, simuláciu a riadenie reálnych materiálov, procesov a javov, Výskum a vývoj pokročilých metód, algoritmov a prostriedkov pre matematické modelovanie, analýzu, syntézu, simuláciu a návrh riadiacich systémov technologických objektov a procesov, Výskum moderných metód, algoritmov a prostriedkov pre matematické modelovanie, analýzu, simuláciu, predikciu a riadenie dynamických procesov v zložitých systémoch a štruktúrach, G6948331134
OpenAlex ID: W4416334883