Typology of transport systems of Russia’s depressed regions

Abstract

The theoretical and methodological aspects of an analysis of regional transport systems are studied, a comprehensive typology of transport systems at the regional and municipal levels is performed, and modeling of typological and evaluative synthetic characteristics of the transport network of the Republic of Mordovia is suggested. The comprehensiveness of the study results from the presence of various components of the territorial socioeconomic systems: production facilities, population, and the environment. The proposed approach is based on the creation of an integral index for aggregated information, which ranks and types the regions and regional transport systems to quantify the value of this index. We study the typological characteristics and properties of regions, the impact of the transport factor on their functioning, and the possibility of increasing regional competitiveness with efficient transport strategies, which may help to overcome regional depressiveness. The six basic types of transport systems of depressed regions are identified. With the case of the Republic of Mordovia, which has the same attributes of its transport network as most of the other studied regions, we carry out a typology of the networks at the municipal district level. The proposed modeling of typological and evaluative synthetic characteristics of the transport network of the Republic of Mordovia could be used to solve problems of road transport operations in the region, territorial planning, and the formation of regional development strategies.