Strategic Planning and Economic Assessment of Development of Intermodal Transport Infrastructure
The authors set the goals: to assess the socio-economic importance of construction of intermodal transport infrastructure in the Russian Federation in modern conditions, to analyse the degree of development of issues of assessing the economic efficiency of intermodal aspects. To achieve these objectives, the content of modern strategic documents (such as the Comprehensive Plan for Modernization and Expansion o f Trunk Infrastructure, the Long-term Development Program of JSC Russian Railways until 2025, the Spatial Development Strategy of the Russian Federation, etc.), as well as the dynamics of container traffic volumes and results in construction of new and modernization of existing intermodal transport infrastructure were analysed. Based on this, a conclusion was made about relevance, importance, and prospects of development of intermodal transport infrastructure for both passenger and freight transportation.The degree of elaboration of issues of assessing the economic efficiency of intermodal aspects is analysed, while the historical retrospective of evolution of methods for its assessment within the framework of state or sectoral methodological guidelines adopted in the former USSR and the Russian Federation is considered. When analysing approaches to assessing economic efficiency inherent in a planned economic model, several effects from improvements associated with the development of transport infrastructure and organisation of operation are described. Against this background, the authors reveal the difference between former and new approaches, characteristic of the modern market economy.Through analysis and synthesis, conclusions were drawn for each part of the study. In the final part, using a dialectical approach, the results obtained are compared. Based on this, conclusions were made on the correlation between the importance of building an intermodal transport infrastructure, the degree of development of issues of assessing the economic efficiency of intermodal aspects and the prospects for development of this research area.