Measuring and assessment of smart city criteria in Metropolis Ahvaz

Urbanization in Iran as a developing country from 1962 took new dimensions and rapid development of real city life started. From this time the population of cities increased because of natural development and rural to urban migration. City of Ahvaz like other cities of Iran has had rapid and uncontrolled development and underwent texture and population transitions because of natural development, migration, service development, different civil engineering plans ad etc. the population of this city increased from 120098 in 1957 to 1095389 in the last census. Smart city is a reality which has been emerged because of ICT development in cities and meeting citizens' needs that can solve many problems of third world countries. Therefore, the current research using quantitative techniques identifies smart city criteria in Ahvaz and assesses the smart city criteria in different parts of this city and tries to answer this question that what is the status of different parts in Ahvaz from the perspective of smart city criteria?

This research is practical performed with descriptive-analytical method. In this method through studies and library sources six criteria smart environment, smart citizens, smart government, smart life ,smart economic and smart dynamism were identified for v city (table1), the smart economy was removed because lack of access to its representations and the other five criterion were researched. The 44 variations were detected for other five criteria that data of 18 representations were made through questionnaire 16 presentations were gathered through statistical annuals, previous studies (dissertations, papers) and internet databases. Field data were gathered through random sampling method among residents of eight districts in Ahvaz after designing questionnaire and confirming its validity using content method. In the next step data entered SPSS software and validity of measure tool estimated as 0.805 using alpha Kornbach that indicates high validity. Then weights and importance of each studied criterion was detected through Shanon anthrop method. In the next step using multi-criteria method of PROMETHEE-GIGA, eight districts were prioritized. Finally using cluster method in SPSS software, the studied districts were categorized in three groups of satisfactory, semi satisfactory and dissatisfactory about having smart city criteria.

Generally speaking if the is higher, district has higher smart city indexes. Fofure 5 indicates results of net ranking calculations. The results indicated tha district 3 with and district 5 with respectively has the best and worst smart city indexes also the results of GAIA indicates the positions of options to other options and influencing indexes in decision making matrix indicates that district 3 of Ahvaz in relation to the districts of this city is nearer to decision basis in GAIA matrix that this issue indicates better conditions of district 3 of Ahvaz in relation to other districts from the perspectives of smart city indexes. In this research, the studied districts were categorized in three groups of satisfactory, semi satisfactory and dissatisfactory about having smart city criteria using cluster method in SPSS software. According to the clustering results, districts 3, 4, 2 were satisfactory, 4 and2 semi satisfactory, and 1, 5, 7 ere dissatisfactory with respect to smart city indexes.

These days with respect to organizing urban sustainable development strategies, the notion of smart city has attracted the attention of urban experts and theoreticians for resolving increased problems emaninf from rise of urbanization, increase in volume, number of city travels and bringing about environmental issues as an important tecnique fro organizing and facilitating the trend of urban sustainvle development. Optimal use of urban space, development of public transportation, designing sidewalks and bike lanes, improving gerneral culture for reducing fuel consumption and using public transportation vehicles are among the basic strategies for attaining smart city patterns. In this research smart city creteia in metropolis Ahvaz have ben discussed and measured. The results of the research indicated that the criterion of smart mobility and with weight of 0.346 Was highly significant and criterion of smart citizen with weight of 0.0108 had the least importance among smart city criterion (table 5), districts two and three respectively with and have the highest conditions and district five with has the most dissatisfactory condition based on smart city indexes (figure 6). According to the clustering results, districts 3, 4, 2 were satisfactory, 4 and 2 semi satisfactory, and 1, 5,7 are dissatisfactory with respect to smart city indexes. According to the new concept of smart cityin the scientific spheres of geography, specially in city planning of Iranso far the performed resraeches in Iran about smart city have focused on study of its dimensions and concepts in theoreticla model. For example Kiani (2012) studied smart city as thrid millenium necessity in unanimous electronic interactions of municipality (providing conceptual-adminstrative model based on cities of Iran) and Behzadfar (2004) studied necessities and bottlenecks of biulding smart cities in Iran. Rudolf Giffinger in a project with cooperation of experts from Vienna university, Ljubljana, Van Delft studied smart city (ranking average cities-in Europe context) pointing to middle context cities, ranked 50 European middle context cities using 74 indexes and z-transformation. In this research using prompty method as one of main methods of multi-criteria decision making, Ahvaz districts have been ranked. As development of tecnologies brings about smart city and promotes texture of city, in this research considering proposed method and current situation of Ahvaz have been discussed from viwepoint of smart city criteria and providing communicative and technological infrastructures is the first main principal in stepping toward smart city. Therefore in all districts of Ahvaz infrastructure areas should be provided for developing communicative and technological networks that among this special attention have been paid on smart transportation and green house along with teaching citizens with principles of technology that can contribute to get smart city.