Summary

Aimed to develop Electronic Citizen System, the project “Kashan Citizen Card” with a variety of modern services created a huge achievement in the field of electronic banking, urban utilities, recycling and increasing the welfare of citizens. Kashan citizen card is a comprehensive integrated solution for city payments and an effective way for creation of smart city.

Background and Objective

There were a lot of problems citizens and organizations face with in terms of city payments including lack of management of current liquidity, lack of integrity of the modified consumption patterns, inability to manage travel costs, increased cost and inadequate security of some organizations and entities such as the organization of Public Transportation, the cost of printing new banknotes, waste of time in preparing change for the purpose of micro-payments, reduction of the useful life of money, the prevalence of health problems arising from distribution of money between people, etc.

Actions and Implementation

The main phases of implementation of the project can be mentioned as follow: Phase 1. Micropayment in shopping centers (supermarkets, bakeries, chain shops, etc.) Phase 2. Micropayment in city and intercity transportation system(bus, train, taxi) and car parking services Phase3. Micropayment in the cultural, recreational and sport areas (historical monuments and museums, cinema and theater, libraries, fairs, gym centers, amusement parks, news stands, etc.) Phase 4. Charging the card in exchange for the delivery of dry sorted waste and encouraging the process of source sorting for the purpose of recycling Phase 5. Designing as “Tourist friendly cards” Phase 6. Creating a network of discount for citizens We faced a variety of challenges when implementing this project, among which the most prominent can be mentioned as: - Cultural barriers in adoption of new plans - Weakness of existed infrastructures - Weakness in the structure of bank system Among the remaining problems that still need to be solved is the need to updating and equipping existing facilities, more coordination in the field of municipal services, and development of electronic banking infrastructures. To make some improvements for the future, municipality of Kashan has planned to fulfill inclusion of more diverse services, encourage and mobilize all of economic subsystems to reinforce infrastructures of smart city, and create a network of discount for citizens.

Outcomes and Impacts

Having a variety of noticeable potentials, Kashan Citizen Card is an ICT- based innovative project which is implemented for the first time in Kashan among Iranian cities. The contribution of this project in removing the current concerns of the citizens, especially in the area of micro payments, the role it plays in engaging citizens to fulfill sustainable electronic city, and the accessibility to a statistical resource in order to measure the quality of urban services from the perspective of citizens, are considered as the main factors which helped to change the ability of authorities to deal with some prominent challenges in the area of city life. This project has got a variety of potentials to enhance the local innovation capacity for developing smart ICT solutions in the future among which we can point to some ideas in the area of smart transportation, ICT-based economic development, innovative targeted tourism, etc. It is a long term strategy that requires participation of citizens in decision-making. So, from the main assets of the project for the citizens we can point to the transparent and participatory management of the city. It also has left high level of economic efficiency and productivity as well as eco-friendly achievements and optimal consumption of resources. In terms of cultural aspect, it has contributed to increasing awareness and knowledge of citizens about ICT-based services. A dramatic development of some urban infrastructures such as clean transportation and board band and speedy internet services are also considered as the most prominent benefits of this project.

Gender and Social Inclusivity

The feasibility studies of this project started about one year before the launch stage. A comprehensive research was performed and all of the preconditions and requirements were examined during this time. As a consequence, the resulted data and experiences are a applicable resource for other cities in order for other cities to benefit from this type of project. For this purpose, some basic and preliminary measures should be taken as follow: - To place web-based infrastructures equipped with smart, reliable, speedy, and inclusive structures - To mobilize and motivate the main public organizations, NGOs, and citizens to collaborate and make the context of adoption of smart city through the innovative application of ICT - To encourage private section to participate in development of IT and ICT infrastructures - To reinforce banking systems especially in local governments - To enhance the security of electronic interactions - To train skilled human resource in the field of IT and ICT - To improve the citizen’s knowledge of ICT

Innovative Initiative

The smart city is a unique solution to a great variety of the problems of today's cities. It proposes strategies, principles, and solutions in different areas of urbanization. We learned from this project saving the natural resources, an integrated management of payments, saving national wealth, encouraging the use of public transportation, etc. To make some improvements for the future, municipality of Kashan has planned to fulfill inclusion of more diverse services, encourage and mobilize all of economic subsystems to reinforce infrastructures of smart city, and create a network of discount for citizens.

Resources devoted to delivery

To Launch Citizen Card of Farapay Faradis Alborz in Kashan Donyaye Eghtesad Lida Ayaz Donyaye Eghtesad Publications 3677 Jan. 14, 2016 25

Conclusion

According to the Kashan 1404 outlook, Kashan should be a creative, coherent, knowledge – oriented, smart, and attractive city. Hence, this project contributed to the achievement of long term policies. Upon the implementation of Kashan Citizen Card Project, the following measures and policies are being taken: -Evolution of important economic, state and social sectors through more sophisticated and innovative use of Information and Communication Technology -Development of competitive skilled labor force in Information and Communication Technology -Establishing a high-speed, intelligent, reliable and inclusive infrastructure for Information and Communication Technology