Determination and Prioritization of Criteria of Site Selection to Establish Sport Facilities for Equal Access by Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP)

Today, the complexity of urban issues has led many variables to be influential in site selection that and the importance and value of each criterion in each region should be considered. The aim of this study was to determine and prioritize site selection criteria of sport facilities by AHP for equal access. Research method was descriptive-survey and application. Library resources and a questionnaire were used to collect data. Firstly, criteria were determined and AHP was used to weigh them and Excel was applied to draw figures. Results showed that four criteria of population density (0.510), access (0.272), development potential (0.152) and neighborhood (0.067) had the highest importance in site selection of sport facilities respectively. Unlike most executive agencies in Iran, as 70% of the sport budget is allocated to development and construction of sports facilities (Asadi, 2009), necessity and importance of investment and increased efficiency in different dimensions get more evident. So, with regards to the needs of any region to establish sport facilities, planners and decision makers should achieve maximum efficiency from minimum resources and economize additional costs using new methods such as AHP.