The Development of Transport Infrastructure Within the Frames of Realizing Tasks of the Sea Doctrine of the Russian Federation

The development of transport infrastructure of the Northern Sea Route makes up one element in realizing the Sea Doctrine of the Russian Federation and a condition of raising sustainability of the Arctic transport system. The goal of the research is to assess the compliance of the actual dynamics of the Northern Sea Route infrastructural development with tasks fixed in the Sea Doctrine of the Russian Federation and to identify trends of raising transport return of the created infrastructure potential. The research was done on the basis of regulatory-strategic and statistical-economic approaches. The authors used provisions of the Sea Doctrine of the Russian Federation, academic publications and statistics for 2019-2025 that characterize total cargo turnover, transit cargo traffic, navigable activities, port capacity, ice-breaker support and finance accompanying of the route development. The following methods were used in the research: structural and dynamic analysis, comparison of absolute and relative indicator changing, short-term extrapolation of identified trends. It was found out that the development of the Northern Sea Route promotes a rise in transit activity and extension of port base while disproportion between the built infrastructure capacity and actual cargo load remains. The research identified restrictions connected with weak sustainability of the cargo base, uneven finance support, aged structure of the ice-breaking fleet and insufficient use of port capacities. The authors showed the necessity to pass from building-up infrastructure capacities to raising effectiveness of their use at the expense of assigning of long-term cargo base, development of regular arctic lines, renewal of the ice-breaking fleet, coordination of financing with measurable transport results and shaping the home technological support of the route.