Barriers to public-private partnership (PPP) implementation in smart urban services

Urbanization has become an important issue in the world. Cities will be hosting more than 68% of the world's population in the following fifty years. This fast urbanization might cause excessive use of sources and the current infrastructure will not be enough. Organizations try to find a new urban solution concept to these problems. This concept is called smart urban service which is a conceptual development model that raises the standards of living spaces. Although they enhance our living standards, they are challenging projects in terms of financing and project delivery. At this point, cities are enlisting the support of private partners to advance these services. Public–Private Partnership is a collaborative model in the public and private sectors working as partners to drive a project. Even though the adoption of PPPs improving, many developing countries are still having difficulties against its implementation. The PPP model is not commonly used for smart urban services in Turkey, a developing country, due to macroenvironmental barriers. In this regard, this study aims to evaluate the barriers to PPP implementation in smart urban services in Turkey to fill the gap in the literature. The barriers are given based on an extensive literature survey. Then, interrelations, and relative importance rates are calculated. Fuzzy Analytic Network Process method is applied, and the Super Decisions is used to calculate the importance weights. "Political, Governmental and Legal Barriers" is observed as the most important main cluster and "Political instability" is calculated as the most important sub-barrier. Consequently, organizations should assess the barriers and shape their policies to develop smart urban projects. This study provides information to help remove or limit these barriers for governments, investors, and other authorities.