Research on the evaluation and efficiency optimization of elderly-friendly smart cities based on the AHP-DEA coupled model

With the global population aging accelerating, the elderly's demand for urban public services is diversifying. Building an elderly-friendly smart city is an important measure to address challenges and improve governance. However, current evaluations mainly focus on single-dimensional indicator systems, lacking systematic assessments of urban comprehensive service efficiency and failing to fully reflect construction investment-output effectiveness and optimization directions. So, this paper takes the elderly-friendly smart city as the research object, innovatively combining the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) with Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) to construct a 'evaluation-efficiency' dual-dimensional research framework. First, using AHP, evaluation indicators are selected from five dimensions via expert questionnaires and consistency tests, quantifying indicator influence weights and identifying key factors. Then, based on this, the CCR and BCC models of DEA are used, with AHP-determined weighted indicators as input variables, to calculate the comprehensive, pure technical, and scale efficiencies of the same city in different years and identify input redundancy and output insufficiency. The combination of AHP and DEA comprehensively evaluates the construction level, analyzes the root causes of efficiency differences, and provides a basis for urban optimization strategies, promoting the transition from'meeting indicators' to 'efficiency improvement'.