USURT is a multidisciplinary technical university mainly focused on training of railway transport specialists of the Urals Federal District.

USURT is a vertically integrated educational complex located in the territory of five constituent entities of the Russian Federation: Yekaterinburg, Perm, Kurgan, Chelyabinsk, Tyumen.

The university complex includes the head university in Yekaterinburg, a railway transport college, a medical college, institutes in Chelyabinsk, Perm, and Kurgan, branches in Nizhny Tagil and Tyumen, a representative office in Kartaly.

In 1994, the university received a new status and was renamed to Ural State Academy of Railway Transport (USART).

The University has established the Center for Innovation and Technology based on the principle of FabLab (international movement of manufacturing laboratories).