PRIORITY AREAS OF DIGITALISATION OF UKRAINIAN CITIES: A METHODOLOGICAL APPROACH

Abstract

The article focusses on identifying the key aspects of urban digitalisation that have priority in the justification and execution of smart city initiatives. The aim of this study is to establish a methodology for selecting and evaluating priority areas for digitalisation. We plan to accomplish this by considering the perception and readiness of city residents for digital change. A variety of methods were used to achieve the aims of the study, including generalising, specialist, electronic questionnaire and hierarchical analysis. It is established that the formulation of digitalisation programmes should rely on defining two key components. The first component is the extent of residents' digital competencies, which impacts their proficiency and ease in accessing digital products and services within cities. The second component is how urban residents perceive digital changes, which determines their appropriateness and relevance for a given city and how they affect the quality of life of residents. The study outlines a process for identifying priority areas for urban digitisation initiatives. This involves evaluating the digital skills of city residents, identifying relevant areas for digitisation, gauging the attitudes of residents towards digitisation processes, determining their priorities, and assessing the feasibility of implementing digitisation initiatives based on specific criteria and resident opinions. Based on the analysis of global digitalization experience, the key areas for digitalization in Ukrainian cities comprise electric transport and mobile applications, traffic management and parking, electric vehicles and charging stations, video surveillance systems, digital city services, education and innovation, smart lighting, and energy efficiency. The study suggests utilizing an integrated methodology, involving a set of techniques such as an online survey, expert evaluation with the implementation of the analytical hierarchy process. In order to determine the viability and priority of urban digitisation zones based on specific criteria, the analytical hierarchy method is proposed. By combining expert opinions and survey results and creating a hierarchical structure based on pairwise comparisons, this technique allows the identification of priority areas for urban digitisation.