Changes in transport use in Russian urban and rural settlements of different population sizes over the period 2014–2022

Abstract

The aim of the study is to examine the dynamics of transport use and transport service in urban and rural settlements of Russia with different population sizes in 2014–2022. The hypothesis of the study is that the dynamics of transport use and transport service in rural settlements repeats the dynamics of transport use and transport service in urban settlements with a certain time delay. With the general growth of transport use, there is a continuing growth in the use of personal passenger cars (including motorbikes) with a simultaneous decrease in the use of public transport. Gradually decreasing differences between urban and rural settlements have been revealed for most of the comparable indicators. In manycases thestudied indicators for ruralsettlementschange along thesame trajectory (with thesame dynamics) as the indicators for urbansettlements, with a lag ofseveral years. Transport use and transportservices for men and women also tend to approach thesame values in all types of settlements. A general pattern is observed: as the population density of a settlement increases, the problems of transport service of the population decrease.