Utilizing Fuzzy AHP with Spherical Numbers to Indicate IoE Factors for Successful Smart City Development

Abstract

Smart cities and communities have become an integral part of urban areas, which can now offer suitable, pleasant, and safe, and ecologically friendly environments. Smart cities provide efficient traffic, water, and energy processes. Indeed, smart cities are often viewed as a necessary mean to upgrade the quality of people’s lives. Apart from the irrefutable benefit that smart cities bring to humanity in general, issues such as overpopulation can lead various problems, namely in the economic, social, medial, and to environmental sectors. New technologies and Internet of things (IoT) and Internet of Everything (IoE) will reform cities, towns, and municipalities as modern urban areas. These technologies will be included in all aspects of modern city life. In recent decades, multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) has been applied various fields of scientific research. This method is gaining popularity in cases where it is desirable to restructure a multi-criteria problem, and further break down into separate subunits, and afterward select the most optimal choice, and/or give an alternative. The use of MCDM therefore provides a formal framework for modeling multidimensional decision-making problems. These problems often require analysis of decision complexity, systems analysis, the relevance of consequences, and the need for accountability of decisions made. In this paper, we apply fuzzy analytic hierarchy process with spherical numbers ranking for IoE indicators that should be considered in the implementation of the smart city concept, through a program of implementing various IoT and IoE solutions. We provide insights on basic criteria groups that affect the smart city concepts.