The problem of budgeting costs for the strategic development of a transport complex in conditions of change is considered. A concept for such budgeting is proposed based on the decomposition of the global strategic task of diminishing transport complex expenses into local tasks, with the subsequent formation of a cost-effective strategic adaptive mechanism for minimizing costs for solving each of the local tasks. A modular approach has been developed to build a cost-effective adaptive budgeting mechanism for the strategic development of the transport complex in conditions of change, based on actual costs and cost norns. The cost-effective mechanisms of the modules used are based on digital learning procedures. Optimal synthesis of the cost-effective mechanism of the “Pupil” module is considered.