Managing digital transport infrastructure of a region

Abstract

The socio-economic situation in the world and the Russian Federation in particular is characterized by increasing mobility in all spheres of public life and the expansion of economic ties. To maintain its competitive advantages, a territory should ensure effective communication lines and a highly developed transport system. The paper investigates the issues of transport infrastructure management in Russia at regional level. The theoretical framework includes the concepts of public management and digital transformation, as well as spatial development theory. The methods of synthesis, expert assessment, and min-max normalization were used. Statistical data were retrieved from the Russian Federal State Statistics Service (Rosstat) for 2016–2021. It was found that the current methodologies for assessing transport infrastructure are not in line with the global trends in the social development, including digital transformation. In the paper, we come up with a new methodology for assessing digital transport infrastructure (DTI) which suggests calculating a composite index of the region’s DTI based on four subindices: transport, education, information and communication, and innovation. The study provides composite indices for Russia’s all federal districts for the period from 2016 to 2021 indicating that the regions are seriously lagging behind the center, and the development level of innovation, ICT and education is insufficient.