EVOLUTION OF SCIENTIFIC APPROACHES TO DEFINING THE TRANSPORT SERVICES MARKET WITHIN THE GLOBAL ECONOMY SYSTEM

Abstract

The article provides a comprehensive scientific study of the genesis and transformation of the transport services market within the system of the modern global economy. The relevance of the topic is justified by the growing share of services in the global GDP, the digital transformation of the industry, and the necessity for Ukraine’s strategic integration into the European transport space in the context of post-war recovery. As a result of the analysis, four fundamental stages in the evolution of scientific perspectives on the role of transport have been identified. The first stage (18th – early 20th century) is characterized by the interpretation of transport as an "extension of production" in the spirit of classical political economy. The second stage (mid-20th century) is associated with the formation of the logistics paradigm and the transition from the concept of "transportation" to the concept of "flow management." The third stage (late 20th – early 21st century) reflects the integration of transport into global value chains, where the container revolution and multimodality became the drivers of service standardization. The fourth, modern stage (since the 2010s) is characterized by the convergence of digitalization and decarbonization, the emergence of the Mobility as a Service concept, and the final establishment of transport services as an independent market with platform competition. The paper provides a detailed analysis of the essential characteristics of the transport service as a specific commodity that combines the features of an economic good, a process, and a result, while lacking a physical form. Three conceptual approaches to defining the transport services market have been systematized: systemic-economic, legal-economic, and logistics-infrastructure. A common limitation of all approaches was identified—insufficient adaptation to the conditions of digital transformation. Based on a critical synthesis, an author's definition is proposed. The fundamental distinctions of the proposed definition are: the inclusion of a technological dimension; the expansion of the "transportation" category to "spatial mobility," which covers multimodal solutions and information support; the fixation of the transboundary nature of the market through the simultaneous consideration of the national and international institutional environment; and the positioning of the transport market as a system-forming element of global value chains. The results of the study can serve as a conceptual basis for analyzing regulatory mechanisms, the business environment, and strategies for positioning countries in the global transport services market.