GORA surveys the condition of forest roads and develops navigation for motorcycles and bicycles.
Point cloud: public TIERS dataset, University of Turku, CC BY 4.0 — example data, not recorded by GORA; condition colours for illustration.
For forest enterprises, municipalities and nature parks we survey the current condition of forest roads and recreational facilities: ridden on a light trail motorcycle, measured with a laser scanner and satellite positioning, delivered as a GIS dataset.
A 142 kg motorcycle, no faster than 30 km/h, weekdays only and only with the forest owner's consent.
One kilometre of valley slope in the Arnsberg Forest: terrain, aerial image, vegetation and road axes from open state data and OpenStreetMap, aligned in EPSG:25832. On top sits what we measure — condition per section, damage points, facilities.
Terrain (DGM1), aerial image (DOP) and vegetation heights (nDOM): Geobasis NRW, dl-de/zero-2.0 · Roads and facilities: © OpenStreetMap contributors, ODbL · Condition classes and damage points: example. Relief not exaggerated.
The network is split into day rounds that cover every road completely — with as little repeated distance as possible.
A laser scanner on the rear scans the road crosswise, from ditch to treetop. Dual-frequency satellite positioning keeps the location.
Motion sensor and scanner compute the track. Walkers and cyclists are detected and filtered out.
A section every 0.5 m with widths, clearance and pinch points — see the cross-section below.
Benches, huts, barriers and damage are recorded with a photo in the app. Through the shared time stamp every image lands at its place on the road.
Location is checked against your road register and the terrain model; deviations are reported. Delivered for your GIS.
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Every point along the road goes into the evaluation. For the measurements the road is split into 0.5 m slices, one after another without a gap. Schematic of a forest road on a slope: carriageway, verge, ditch and both embankments, with the clearance profile above. Every section yields carriageway and crown width, the free passage and every pinch point with its location.
Example values, schematic drawing. Trees: real measurement points from the TIERS dataset, University of Turku (CC BY 4.0). Rider: AI-generated image.
The road network in sections by condition (classes 1–4 per KWF leaflet 26), every damage point and every facility as a point with a photo, deviations from the register with their size. As Shapefile, GeoPackage and table. The full point cloud is available separately on request.
Surveying on the left, navigation on the right, and in the middle the building blocks both use — each tailored to its task.
Why the two belong together. Navigation and road survey rely on the same craft: a road network you can compute with, an elevation model, and GPS tracks matched to the right road. For GORA Navigation this became route calculation. In the survey, the same technology plans the run through a forest district and assigns every measurement to its road section.
GORA Navigation is one app for motorcycles and bicycles. The route doesn't come from the shortest time but from the profile: ADV for offroad, MOTO for curves, BIKE for quiet ways — with everyday, gravel, mountain bike and road bike as riding modes.
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Questions about road surveys or GORA Navigation? Write to us and we will get back to you.