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Abstract. The Russian Federation (RF) has a very extensive transport network that is one of the largest in the world. The transport safety is among the key priorities of the National Transport Strategy of the RF. Using information of the own database as well as official statistics data, the author analyzed the main causes and triggers of road crashes and railway accidents and traced their temporal variations and spatial distributions within the country. As the leading triggering factor of accidents, ranks the so-called "human factor" including traffic violations by drivers, such as speeding and driving under influence of alcohol and other human errors. A rate of the deterioration of railway tracks and rolling stocks and other technical problems are also increasing during the last decade. In some regions, the poor state of roads and streets remaining among the most severe problems that caused almost 40-50% of road accidents. The transport infrastructure is in urgent need of modernization. Additionally, the paper assessed natural factors contributing to the accident occurrences. The main purpose of the study was to reveal regional differences and to find out areas most at risk of transport accidents.
Key Words: transportation system, human factor, human errors, accident, database.
Introduction. The Russian Federation (RF) has a very extensive transport network that is among the largest in the world. The national transport web stretches from Kaliningrad in the west to the Kamchatka Peninsula in the east and includes 1,283 thousand km of public roads, more than 600,000 km of airways, 228,000 km of pipelines, 121,000 km of railways, and 115,000 km of inland waterways. In June 2014, the Ministry of Transport of the RF has compiled a new version of the Transport Strategy up to 2030 that includes among the key priorities to cope with the modern challenges, such as climate change and a need for increasing the safety of the transportation system. The transportation safety problem is one of the most important and urgent problems of the social and economic development of the country, because the current situation is far from being perfect.
The most dangerous means of modern transportation not only in Russia, but also around the world, is automobile transport. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), "the current road safety...