Comparative analysis of the entropic organization of road transport systems in the representative regions of the Arctic zone of Russia

The mineral resources of the Arctic region are difficult to access. The list of dangers, challenges, and threats that form risks for the development of the Russian Arctic Zone occupies 18 points in Section II of the Strategy for Developing the Russian Arctic Zone and Ensuring National Security until 2035. Among them, poor transport infrastructure development and the high cost of its construction represent the most fundamentally important problem. This is a challenge that has to be met, despite all the difficulties and huge costs. This paper presents a comparative assessment of the processes of improving road infrastructure in two representative regions of the Russian Arctic Zone - Murmansk Region and Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Area - developing over time (2012-2019). The improvement of regional road infrastructure is assessed in terms of system organization using such an indicator as relative system entropy Hn. We also analyzed the dynamics of changes in the organization of regional traffic safety (TS) systems over time (2012-2019) and evaluated the impact of the organization in road construction on the TS system organization in the compared regions. © 2021 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.