An integrated performance evaluation approach for the Indian smart cities

A smart city can be defined as an urban region with modern technological features, enhanced mobility and upgraded public utility services. Query In this paper, the application of an integrated approach is proposed to assess the relative performance of 98 Indian smart cities with respect to 11 evaluation criteria. Decision making trial and evaluation laboratory (DEMATEL) method is first adopted to divide all the considered criteria into appropriate cause and effect groups along with the determination of their weights. It also identifies the most influential criterion which dominates the others, and the most trivial criterion which is being dominated by the others. The application of the generalized k-means clustering algorithm reduces the initial dataset containing 98 smart cities into a manageable set with only 23 efficient cities. Finally, multi-attributive border approximation area comparison (MABAC) method is adopted to rank the shortlisted cities from the best to the worst. In the derived ranking list, Aizawl occupies the top position, followed by Mangalore. Warangal and Bilaspur are the two worst performing cities. The proposed approach can also recognize the relative strengths and weaknesses of each of the cities so that appropriate remedial measures can be augmented to strengthen the lagging infrastructures of the underperforming Indian smart cities.