Estimation of Distances between Russian Regions with an Account for Transport Infrastructure

The study assesses the average weighted distances between Russian regions using various metrics: the shortest distances on the sphere and distances along railways and roads. Such summary estimates are necessary for researchers of interregional processes, e.g., migration and freight transport, but are not publicly available. This article fills this gap. The methods for assessing distances using various metrics are described in detail (based on data from the Federal Agency for Railway Transport on tariff distances between railway stations, information on the coordinates and population of cities, and services for calculating distances between cities). The proposed metrics can be viewed as a metric of economic distance developed in the context of studies of gravitational interactions. Estimates of distances between Russian regions are based on current data with a high degree of detail (data on distances between 2840 railway stations and the populations of about 10 000 population centers were used). The results of the assessments are made publicly available for free use for scientific and practical purposes. Cases of significant discrepancies in estimates of distances between Russian regions according to different metrics are discussed and interpreted. It is shown that location of the transport infrastructure determines for a number of regions the need to choose the metric of interregional distance depending on the task. The average weighted distance between all federal subjects was estimated with an account for changes in the regional population structure. On this basis, it is shown that since the beginning of the 1990s, population migration has been directed towards regions with greater relative transport connectivity.