Smart city scenarios based on the urban Futures Studies Approach: A case study of Tabriz metropolis

The world today is facing challenges that are caused by the transformations resulting from the progress of science and technology and the design of new needs. In this regard, the smart city model is a new solution that, in accordance with the advancement of information and communication technology and meeting the new needs of citizens in their urban life, forces urban planners to review and rethink their actions. This research, which is in the field of identifying the main and key factors in the future of the smart city in Tabriz metropolis, in terms of purpose and in terms of method, a combination of documentary and survey methods and in terms of nature, is based on the new methods of futures scientific, analytical and exploratory methods that have been done using a combination of qualitative and quantitative models.Meanwhile, to apply appropriate policy strategies, some 55 primary factors were identified by the panel of experts by using the resource review and Delphi method. In order to determine the key factors and effective drivers in this system, 16 factors were introduced using the cross-impact matrix. The final findings indicate that smart economy and smart mobility have the largest share as the main actors in this collection and will play a more effective role in the future of Smart City and it is expected that driver affecting on the smart future of Tabriz metropolis be one comprising mobility and economic components.Based on the results, among the 55 factors identified, 16 factors played a major role as key factors effective in the smart future process of Tabriz metropolis and were recognized as the main actors. The main requirement for developing scenarios for key factors is the definition of possible situations and a detailed analysis of the upcoming conditions, and finally 61 possible situations were compiled for 16 key factors. By thoroughly evaluating possible situations, 7856 possible scenarios, 21 plausible scenarios and 5 scenarios with high probability of future condition of Smart City in Tabriz were identified